


The Blind Baker

by crabapplered



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: AU, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:14:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22910815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crabapplered/pseuds/crabapplered
Summary: The Blind Baker is one of Eos most popular Messengers. Patron of travellers, refugees, lost children and cooks of all kinds, he is "the Lamp in the Dark that heralds the return of the King of Light". He is honoured in roadside shrines and kitchen altars, he is spoken of in scripture and in children's tales, and he has been in countless movies, plays, novels, comics, and songs.But who is he? What are his origins? The Cosmogony teaches that the King of Light was raised up by the Astrals to watch over the Star so that never again would Eos be plunged into darkness. Who, then, was this herald-turned-Messenger? Who was the man who was raised up to divinity, and what did he do to deserve it?- extract from "Seeing The Blind Baker Clearly" by Donda Palintropa
Relationships: Noctis Lucis Caelum/Ignis Scientia
Comments: 25
Kudos: 151
Collections: Ignis whump February exchange





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [egelantier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/egelantier/gifts).



> For Eg, who deserves at least this much after helping me get my grubby paws on Nirvana in Fire. I hope you enjoy.

The Blind Baker is one of Eos most popular Messengers. Patron of travellers, refugees, lost children and cooks of all kinds, he is "the Lamp in the Dark that heralds the return of the King of Light". He is honoured in roadside shrines and kitchen altars, he is spoken of in scripture and in children's tales, and he has been in countless movies, plays, novels, comics, and songs. 

But who is he? What are his origins? The Cosmogony teaches that the King of Light was raised up by the Astrals to watch over the Star so that never again would Eos be plunged into darkness. Who, then, was this herald-turned-Messenger? Who was the man who was raised up to divinity, and what did he do to deserve it?

\- extract from "Seeing The Blind Baker Clearly" by Donda Palintropa

  
Noctis' final scream is still ringing against the metal walls of the Crystal's chamber when Ignis, Prompto, and Gladio stagger across the walkway to confront the creature that wears the skin of a man, and perhaps Gladio says something but Noctis' wail isn't dying away, it is growing louder and louder, muffling what might be Prompto's gunshot and drowning out the sound of whatever fell to the walkway -a body?- and it grows louder still until Ignis' head is full of nothing but Noctis' voice, the raw, desperate _sound_ of it drawing on and one into a single note that vibrates in Ignis' _marrow_. 

He is only dimly aware of himself. Numb hands and leaden legs, and his own stumbling shamble toward the thing that has consumed the very centre of his world. He is reaching for it, he thinks, but something -someone?- holds him back. Tugs him. Pulls him, drags him away by inches while Noctis' voice still rings through Ignis, rattles through to the back of his _teeth_ , clatters through his ribs, and ricochets around his skull in odd, rhythmic beats that could almost be syllables.

Words. 

Are words. 

Horrible words. Words of blood sacrifice and coming darkness and inevitability. Words Ignis rejects even as they are carved into him by prophecy. Fights as fiercely as he fights against being taken from the Crystal, slipping from that grasping darkness to stumble forward, pushing away what would bind him, what would bar him, until at last he lays his hands on the geode that is the living, throbbing heart of their Star.

Magic blazes, the icy wildfire of the very stars. He can feel his gloves disintegrate, the clothing he wears catch fire, the blood in his veins boil and froth and yet it does not kill him, cannot kill him. It flows _through_ him in channels cut by the Ring, and with it comes the the vision once more, clearer now, brighter and darker, details drawn in and flavours added, filling him up until his soul overflows and he would drown except that fingers dig into his shoulder and wrench him away and back into his own body.

Hands catch him. Arms cradle him close. So warm. He shivers. His face is hot and wet and he can't breath right and, oh. He's crying. His body convulses, squeezing out another sob, and this time he hears it.

"-sorry," someone is saying. "I'm so sorry, Iggy, but he's _gone_ and you can't-"

He shakes his head to try and clear it. Tries to sit up, only to be yanked back and pinned to broad chest. "Ignis." Too hot. Too close. The rumble of that voice too loud, louder still when it snaps, "Ignis!"

So insistent. It drags him further back into the self that is tangled in limbs and apologies, and as the frost-sharp tang of magic fades and his own sobs shake the last dregs of augury from his tongue he breathes deep and smells the leather and sweat of-

"G-Gladio."

Searing gust of breath on his neck as Gladio blows out air and tension. "Yeah. Good. You remember this other idiot?"

It takes him longer because there is no one else there in his world except the body wrapped around his own and he has to reach out from that safe haven, his arm trembling and his fingers still pins-and-needles, but then his hand is caught in two smaller ones, callused and warm and nails bitten ragged and he remembers,

"Pr~om.to. Prompto."

"That's me," Prompto agrees with a nervous, breathless laugh. "You back with us, Iggy?"

He has to think about that, too, as he wipes the damp from his eyelashes, smooths back his hair, until he's grudgingly satisfied that, ". . . yes. Yes, I am. Apologies. I'm afraid I. Let myself get carried away."

Gladio's arms tighten about him. "You're lucky you weren't carried right to your grave. What the hell were you thinking, touching the Crystal?! You could have been burnt alive!"

"It looked like you _were_ ," blurts Prompto. "It looked like you were one of the Haven fires. Blue and green and all ghost-like and you were _crying_ , and-"

"I'm fine," Ignis hurries to say, to stop the spill of words before they can bleed Prompto's heart. He tugs on their joined hands and brings Prompto closer only to find his arms suddenly full of unhappy young man, Prompto doing his best to burrow into Ignis' embrace, adding to the tangle of bodies. 

"I thought you were gonna die. I thought we were _all_ gonna die, first with the demons and then- when he- when Ardyn _didn't_ die." Prompto's turn to shudder as if the fear would crawl out of his skin. "I shot him. I know I did, perfect heart piercer." The curve of his nose against Ignis' throat, his voice that of a frightened child, "Why didn't he die?" and then, bare shapes traced by his lips on Ignis' skin, "I wish he'd just _die_."

The question stirs the ashes of Ignis' mind, bringing the spark of memory. Knowledge. "He didn't die because he isn't human. He's-" A slew of images dance before his dead eyes, vague shapes and shadows layered over with the powerful sense of the alien. "-from elsewhere? No. _He_ was from here. I'm sure of it. But I believe- I believe he became . . . other. Like the demons? No," he says, trying to piecing it together, "Perhaps. Of the demons?" 

Gladio snorts. "That explains his winning personality. And speaking of the demons, much as I'm enjoying this little love fest, it's time we decide what we're gonna do next before they show up and decide for us." 

Self-awareness hits Prompto like an electrical prod, jerking him out of their little knot with a clatter of boots against metal floor and stammering words of, "S-sorry! Got, uh. Kinda carried away there! Yup, just a _li~ttle_ overwhelmed by the last twenty-four hours." Nervous laughter. The clink of chain and the shift of cloth, Prompto fussing with clothing and his hair the way he's done so many hundreds of times on this cursed trip, patching up his carefree facade to weather the next storm. "So, uh, yeah. Plans. Plans are good! What next? How we gonna get out of this place?"

"We're not," Ignis says slowly. He pulls himself from Gladio's arms and turns blindly to face the Crystal, a magnet now forever drawn toward that magic poll. The phantoms the Crystal showed him, shards of past-present-future, reflect into each other like the colours of a kaleidoscope, impossible distortions he can only puzzle out in slow, backward stages, but a few crucial things have become clear. "At least, I'm not. Not yet."

"Wha- Iggy, no!"

"Are you crazy?! You can't-"

"There are things here I need to investigate," he continues, overriding the protests of his companions. "Things the Crystal hinted at. This place was Ardyn's . . . den for the past decade at least. There has to be more information on him I can uncover here."

"While blind?" demands Gladio, his disbelief a heavy layer over his words.

Blind, yes. Trapped in a darkness that is even now spreading, will continue to spread, has blotted out the colours of the future like an ink stain, like ashes of all-devouring black fire. "That's an issue for later. For now we have a much more pressing emergency. We know it's getting dark. We know it's going to continue. Now, with what I drew from the Crystal, I can tell you it will stay dark, and for a very long time indeed."

Gladio's answer is only the hiss of indrawn breath. It's Prompto who dares to ask, "Uh, when you say 'long', like. How long? A couple days, a couple months, a couple _years_ . . ."

Each suggestion grows closer to the mark. And yet. "Longer," murmurs Ignis. "It feels longer. Five years? No, longer still. I'm not sure . . ."

"It's enough," says Gladio. "After five years you might as well stop counting because everyone'll be too dead to give a damn. No light means a world-wide demon infestation that'll make that loading bay we fought through seem like a Haven. And that's only the beginning. Starscourge can blight crops, fuck with livestock, infect entire towns in days . . . "

"And without the Oracle we have no way to cure it," murmurs Prompto. 

"That we _know of_ ," Ignis corrects. "When we took that pause in the barracks right after rescuing you, Noctis mentioned he'd found various reports on the Imperial experiments, didn't he? Experiments involving demons and the Scourge. That's what I mean by things that need investigating here. As for the other concerns, consider: we are standing atop a stockpile of the world's most advanced technology. We have everything here from floodlamps to magitek generators. Military survival equipment. Medical supplies. Those atrocious flying fortresses you can land and convert into a primitive base. An entire nation's worth of resources, abandoned and available to us."

"I wouldn't exactly call 'locked behind an ice wall and infested with demons' any kind of available, Iggy." But Gladio sounds thoughtful now instead of grimly resigned, and it's encouragement enough for Ignis to start laying the groundwork for his tentative plan.

"Three days. A week the most. With Prompto's passcode and our access to the Emperor's throne room, we should be able to take stock of what's available to us. We can even use the Imperial radio facilities to contact Aranea's ship. It's likely she'll help us once we explain the situation. With her aide we'll have five pilots, assuming both Biggs and Wedge can also fly, and that's only the first wave. The remaining Glaive and Crownsguard will rally to help as soon as we can contact Cor, and then we can . . . "

~

The ruined cathedral that is Zegnautus Keep echoes with distant voices. Ignis' plan is in full swing, Aranea and her crew having arrived less than twelve hours ago. They'd come with the handful of Glaive they could muster on such short notice, and for a wonder the Astrals had actually smiled upon their mission and Cor had been in the area, had come with that first wave. 

With his blade they'd been able to secure the loading docks. With his authority they'd been able to contact the dregs of Altissa's government and make plans. Now Biggs and Wedge are flying out in one of the Imperial air fortress, enroute to the nearest Altissan refugee camp with all the military surplus that could be crammed into the thing's holds. 

Aranea herself has whisked Prompto away into the depths of the Keep, intent on discovering the command deck and if the Keep could not simply hover, but truly fly. If so, then their options will expand phenomenally. If not, it can still provide an excellent base of operations for the Glaives as they sally into the city below to scavenge what they can for the next shipments. Gladio has certainly thrown himself into the cause of securing the place, taking grim satisfaction in scouring all traces of the Keep's former masters from its halls. 

And as for Ignis . . . 

. . . he's in the kitchen. In the officers' messhall, to be exact.

He's trying to make lunch.

There are literally dozens of other things he'd much prefer to be doing, things he needs to be doing, but the trek through the Keep has hammered home that he still has a long way to go before he's independent. He has at least graduated past the infant stage —he can walk without falling and wash, dress, and feed himself— but when it comes to anything more complicated things get dicey. 

That has to change. The future the Crystal showed him is roiling toward the present like black thunderheads on the horizon. He needs to achieve independence. No, more than that. He needs to regain his abilities and then surpass himself, become a man who can stand alone in that vast darkness, because Gladio and Prompto will be at the centre of the survival efforts and Ignis will have only himself to rely on for this fool's quest into the secrets the gods have buried deep.

And so, lunch. 

Because what he needs is to relearn his world, to re-tune his brain to the frequencies of the senses he has always pushed aside in favour of his impeccable vision, something cooking is uniquely suited to train. 

To smell if fruit is ripe or the milk gone sour or the rice has finished. To hear the spatter of oil, sizzle of frying fish, the roil of boiling water. To feel the elasticity of the dough, the firmness of the meat to see how well it's done, the heft of flour to judge its weight. Taste, of course, queen of the kitchen, is there to bolster all the others.

It trains other things as well, such as fine motor control as you wield the chopping knife, your internal clock as you count down the time needed to roast the vegetable in the oven, and the ability to multitask by preparing several dishes at once. It is, in short, an ideal training ground for his new life, and now that they are no longer rushing headlong in pursuit of their enemies he intends to work himself to the bone pursuing _himself_ : his past self, his past independence and skills.

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single sandwich," he murmurs. 

He begins by methodically mapping out the kitchen. Paces up and down to measure its length and width, carefully investigates each cupboard and countertop, finds the enormous sinks, the refrigerator, the walk in cooler. Then he wanders aimlessly in a direction, spins himself around in circles, and challenges himself to find everything.

It's an exercise he's been practising since the Malboro incident at Fodina Caestino, and now he manages it after only two tries. That accomplished he sets himself to taking inventory. The Keep has only recently been deserted - he finds an impressive quantity of staples still sound, like root vegetables and apples, plenty of flour and sugar, butter, enormous cartons of eggs . . .

He pulls out some onions and tries the most basic of tasks: to dice six of them fine enough to be sauteed. He times himself with his phone.

He grips the edge of the counter until his fingers hurt when the timer app reveals he's taken two hours. 

From there he graduates to chopping carrots and peeling potatoes. Hour after hour after hour at tasks he could have sworn he could do blinded and is now being proved the liar. He cuts himself while working on a carrot and only knows because he feels the hot slickness of the blood. Spares a bit of healing magic and more than a few curses at having ruined the food. Gets stubborn about it and digs out a skillet, finds the cooking oil after patient exploration and smelling every jug and bottle he lays hands on, and dares to light the stove.

Fried veg seasoned with pepper and salt and his own red blood is the first thing he cooks after having been blinded. He eats it straight from the skillet, scalding his mouth and fingertips so he has an excuse to weep.

~

Ignis' original timeline for their occupation of Zegnatus keep has long since been revised. The Glaives have answered Cor's summons, and with them have come more manpower, more skills, more ideas. 

A minor miracle has left the command deck unlocked, and Prompto, with his Imperial access code, is now able to control the entire floating fortress, much to Aranea's envious disgust. It seems the Keep does indeed fly, though according to Prompto it lumbers through the sky with 'all the grace and speed of a pregnant Garulessa.'

Sania Yeagre came in with the second wave of Glaives, discovered mention of the hydroponic farms in the city below, and railroaded Gladio into taking a squadron to free the facility and retrieve it, relocating the entire set of gardens in the Keeps' enormous hangers. They once housed countless rows of walking mechanical armour. Now they're slowly filling with tomatoes, beans, peas, lettuce and squashes; enough greenery to make Noctis want to linger a few more years in the Crystal.

Most of that magitek armour had been missing, but enough of it had remained for Cor and the Glaives to load into carriers and fly out to the various refugee camps, Hunter outposts, and the city of Lestalum to bolster their defences for what was to come. There was talk of networking between settlement, establishing communication lines, relocating the dispossessed to the now abandoned Imperial garrisons. 

And Ignis? He has downloaded every app he can find for the visually impaired. He now has a scanner app that can use the camera to identify various cans, bottles, and everyday objects. He has a reader app that can pick out the text on anything he points his phone at and have it recite the words in three different customizable accents.

He has learnt to break eggs and separate the yolks from the whites by feel alone.

He has been at his drills in the kitchen every damn day, every damn hour, until he has worked his way through everything edible and it has all been neatly peeled, chopped, diced, and packaged in plastic containers. He is starting to be able to tell the weight of flour by hand. He can chop at almost regular speed without slicing himself, can fry and boil and make hot sandwiches, omelets, pancakes, pasta, vegetable soup and baked potatoes. The knife feels familiar in his hand once more, and while he waits for the coffee to brew he spins the blade around and around his fingers, slowly at first but picking up speed, in the flashy patterns he so loved to watch and now does for the feel, for the thrill of his own ability.  
  
He can smell when the coffee is done, retrieves his mug without a fumble, and sets the knife on the counter to savour the brew. Ebony, fresh as he's never enjoyed it before, because this is the Empire, and Ebony is its pride and flagship export. The stuff is everywhere to be had, in vending machines and cans of coffee grounds and even fresh beans tucked away in the mess hall freezer, a taste of joy in this bitter place.

The smell and taste of it is rich, bitter, more intense than he could ever dream now that he's begun to truly listen to his other senses. It lingers on his tongue and the back of his throat. Coffee, yes. Coffee, and something more. 

_Magic_.

He's always been sensitive to it, of course. It's why he has such ease at enchanting his daggers, at bolstering his companions in a fight with healing, at handling the magical grenades Noctis can craft. And with first the Ring, and now the Crystal having carved the paths of power through his flesh, he can feel it even more intensely. The ringing song of the Crystal off to his distant right, still suspended in the chains the Emperor bound it with. The roiling mass of life far below in the earth. And now this odd, fluttering bit of wild power.

_Is this . . . kitchen magic?_

He knows of it, of course, and even tried to use it, with mixed success. It's how he kept their little troupe healthy despite camping in all weather, with stress wearing at their minds and grief tearing at their hearts and poverty dogging their heels, while the Empire's forces ambushed them at every turn: a little bit of his power poured into every dish to ward away harmful magic, to bolster flagging strength, to warm the belly and the heart. 

But this is the first time he's truly sensed it. It's the echo of life become raw energy, a flickering ember of possibility in meat, bread, vegetable. It's the inborn power of herbs and spices to ward away poisons and curses. It's the cleansing song of salt, the preserving touch of vinegar. It is, he realizes, in everything about him in this kitchen, a unique droplet of power that calls to him and having heard it, can he use this?

_I suppose the proof will be in the pudding._

Pudding? No. Make it something a little more complicated. A little more difficult. Something he hasn't yet dared to try. 

This was the officers' messhall, and so there is the best of everything and more, treats the common enlisted and the poor MTs would never see. Fresh coffee beans, of course, but also things like cream and cherries, brandy and sea salt.

Chocolate.

He retrieves the container of eggs he'd separated out, gathers up flour and baking soda, baking powder, salt, vanilla, bars of chocolate and sugar both brown and white. He sets them all out on the counter and touches them, tastes them in turn, feels at the flicker of magic in each one and tugs experimentally, trying to fan that spark of potential into something brighter. It doesn't quite work. It doesn't quite fail. It needs more, he thinks. 

He begins to measure everything out and discovers to his delight that the magic can help him, that the flicker-flash of power changes with the amount of the ingredient. Discovers that when he pours the dry ingredients together that power smolders and flares, like kindling with like to combine and grow like true fire, as the salt bends the magic like a prism does light, the eggs adding fuel to the blaze and the softened butter stabilizing the flow until the entire mixture is humming with potential power, waiting, _waiting_.

He lets the magic guide his hands as he chops the bars of semi-sweet chocolate into perfect squares. When he pours them into the mixing bowl they catch the magic on each of their corners; when he stirs the dough the magic gilds each surface. 

Onto the baking sheets lined with parchment paper he drops spoonfuls of the sticky stuff, and to his senses they are like hot coals, like knots of lightning. 

He sets the oven to preheat and he doesn't resent having to use his phone to verify the dial because his mouth is full of sugar and butter and chocolate that he's licked from the mixing spoon, and the dough is perfect, the magic interwoven with vanilla to linger on the palate, and by the gods but victory is sweet! 

Into the oven goes three baking sheets. He makes more coffee and sips it slowly, breathing in the smell of caramelizing sugar and melting chocolate, feeling the strange way the magic slowly settles, firms, _bakes_ into shape. 

It doesn't take long. Cookies never do. He's just pulling them from the oven, in fact, when the first hurried footsteps clatter on the metal walkways outside the messhall. Voices, too muffled to understand, drift along ahead, and his newly developed reflexes kick in, trying to estimate the amount of people approaching. Five? Six? No, more, there's more and there are more joining them, he realizes. In fact, it almost sounds as if-

"I CALL FIRST DIBS!" Prompto carols, wallet chain chiming in discordant accompaniment as he- he must be jogging? And Ignis opens his mouth to reply but there's the rush of displaced air and the unmistakable sound of reality shattering like ethereal glass under the impact of Royal magic, boots hitting the ground near him as some Glaives have apparently warped ahead of Prompto to the kitchen door and an unfamiliar voice retorts that,

"Possession is nine-tenths of the law, Blondie!"

And then Aranea reminds them all that, "It's only a victory if you're alive to claim it, along with whatever it is Four-eyes here has cooked up. Speaking of which," she continues, drawing closer, "What _did_ you bake? The smell is amazing."

"And it must have gotten into the vents somehow because it's all over the ship," adds another of the Glaives. "It's enough to drive you crazy! I was in the munitions bay all the way at the other freakin' end of the Fort and suddenly I'm craving chocolate worse then when I was pregnant."

Ignis cocks his head. 'Gotten into the vents'? "Cookies. The old standby of chocolate chip. There's thirty of them, which should be more than enough to provide you with one apiece."

There's much groaning and protestations but he leaves them no choice: one cookie each, under threat of no cookies for anyone if someone cheats.

With them all standing guard on each other he's able to turn his attention to more important matters. Impossible that the scent of his baking could have gotten into the vents when this is a military ship, with all the precautions included, let alone have the smell make its way through the entire Fortress. And yet, here was undeniable proof that it had. More then that, it had . . . compelled people? Charmed them? To have brought everyone to his kitchen in such a frantic hurry means that he's obviously influenced them beyond the power of mere butter and sugar. 

The rolling thunder of fresh footsteps heralds the second wave of desperate would-be diners.

"Did we miss it? Is there anything left?!" demands Gladio.

It seems even the Marshall has succumbed, saying "I hope you've saved enough for the rest of the troops dirtside. We were both lucky enough to get here before you've eaten them all, but there are those who aren't as fortunate. Professor Yeager, for one. It would be churlish of us to neglect the lady after she's helped us so much."

"I can always bake more," Ignis assures him.

More cookies are handed out, and Ignis leans against the counter, coffee cup in hand to keep his mouth busy so no one will think to bother him further. He needs time now, to wait and listen and feel as the magic in his baking seeps into each person one mouthful at a time, strengthening their bodies and their-

Is that _their_ magic? Yes. Yes! Now that he's paying attention to subtler currents of power he realizes he can sense the magic not only in the cookies but in the people around him. In the Glaives, in Aranea and Prompto, in Gladio and Cor. Different again from the Crystal, from the roiling power of the planet, from even his delicate kitchen magic. . .

Can he use this, as well? 

Food for thought. In fact, it gives him an idea. "Gladio, do you think Professor Yeager can spare you for a few hours of sparring this afternoon?"


	2. Chapter 2

A little sweet, a little salty, and a lot filling, Traveller's Oatcakes are traditional fare during the Ten Days of Darkness. Over the years there have been many variations, with every country developing its own special take on the old favourite. In this post, I've compiled each of those regional recipes . . .

\- article from Tonberry's Kitchen (tonberry-kitchen.com)

  
Ignis breathes deeply. The wind carries the scent of trees and moss and stagnant water. He opens his mouth and draws in the wet green taste of the forest, rolls it around on his tongue to catch the undertones of rotting leaves and Starscourge. There are daemons nearby.

The sound of leaves roils around him like ocean surf, spattering against the trunks of trees and the twining roots that embroider the forest floor, against the jutting rocks tumbled off to his left and the fallen crumbling arches of Solheim ruins ahead of him, and leaving behind a sketchy mental picture of the world around him.

It's magic that draws the details of that picture. Magic shows him the living throb of the trees and the moss, the clockwork marvel of the ancient ruin's enchantments, the path of grass that's blighted dying from the passing of the demons. Magic shows him the demons, a half-dozen rotting knots of power that leave smears of themselves in their wake, and magic shows him their prey, a trio of humans sheltering in the rocks.

Ignis summons a dagger, and throws.

The warbling cry as the blade sinks home is nothing he's ever heard before, fluting and horribly moist, and he's quick to lash out with the groping tendrils of Libra to scan this new foe and almost regrets it when the crawling touch of insect legs skitters across his skin and into his ears and across brain as the Starscourge makes itself known for the violation that it is to his Crystal-heightened senses. He grits his teeth against the too-familiar nausea. Breathes through his nose. One heartbeat. Two. They have all turned toward him and he knows them now.

Creatures that were animal- plant- they were fungus. The Starscourge uprooted them, warped them, gave them hunger beyond their own and teeth for sating the need for flesh. They are of water and earth and poison and he calls his dagger back to his hand and wreaths it in licking flames. He kicks it, sends it shooting like a meteor, and this time when the blade sinks home the creature keens.

He hears too clearly - the sound nearly drives him to his knees, rattling his grip on the world around him. He shakes his head clear just in time to catch the crack of displaced air, tumbles sideways to dodge the whip-strike of whatever-it-is, and barrels forward with Sagefire called to his hands. 

_Damn the risk of the forest! If these things stun me it's all over!_

It's fast and it's dirty with their mucus spattering across his skin, the black ooze of the Scourge sizzling and stinking in the flames of his magic like over-fried eggs. He takes cuts to the arms and snarls as he feels his shirt tear and ruin, and as the creatures writhe and die he curses at the thought of another night fumbling to relearn to sew. He still can't make even stitches, and he's fast running out of presentable shirts . . . 

"The three of you can come out now," he calls to the trio in the rocks as he fingers the various tares, and winces to find broken skin and wet blood underneath. He pushes healing magic through his fingers, feels it resonate with the lingering enchantments he'd boiled into his tea herbs and cleanse his wounds, knit his skin.

His answer is a great deal of silence.

He cocks his head. Turns to face their general direction and studies the flow of power. They don't seem to be wounded, or incapacitated by status effects. Are they asleep, perhaps? Or simply too frightened to answer? "All the daemons are dead and I've no intention of harming you. You're quite safe."

Whispering, now, quiet and urgent and yes, frightened. It's too faint for him to pick out the words, but the voices sound like those of women, and if he's right then he can well imagine why they might hesitate to approach an unknown man who wields magic and can single-handedly defeat a pack of daemons. 

He makes a quick review of his options. He doesn't want to tarry here unnecessarily; he's under a sharp time constraints, and while others will no doubt find the darkness long, he himself feels sorely pressed for time to find a solution to Noctis' blood staining the inevitable dawn. Besithia's research notes had led Ignis to Angelguard. From Angelguard he had gotten the notion to investigate the ruins of the Oracle's royal library. But with the night settling like a shroud over Eos and the daemons starting to swarm, there are no longer Imperial transports left to ferry him through the skies. He has made his way through Tenebrae's forests and mountains on foot, and he still has a long way to go.

All this flashes through his mind in an instant, weighs on one side of his mental scales. On the other is the thought of frightened people lost in the dark, without magic to arm them and guard them, huddled together in the scant protections of stones, too far from any Haven to find true shelter.

Finally, he offers up a compromise, "If you wish me to leave, I shall, but you must tell me. Otherwise I will assume you have been hurt, and I will come in there after you to try to help."

"No!" Then, "No, wait. Please."

There's the rustle of clothing and the sound of boots on gravel, and finally the pale smudge of energy of a magicless human moves toward him and his ruined eyes pick up the ghost of light. A lamp? Flashlight? Whatever it is, it's plainly serving double duty as an examination lamp as it's pointed straight at his face.

The mysterious woman speaks: "Who are you?"

Interesting. Something about her voice. He'll need to hear more to be certain. "Ignis," he tells her, deliberately omitting his family name. His full origins, as well, adding only that, "I'm with the Hunters." He moves slowly, lifting a hand and pulling out his dogtags to jingle them in her direction. "I'm passing through here on business. Do you need aid? Potions, antidotes? Do you have clean water? Food?"

"Food?" she asks, seemingly despite herself, and is immediately betrayed by her body, her stomach growling loud enough for Ignis to hear. 

Loud enough for the other women in the rocks as well it seems. "Munia! Astrals, he'll think you're ready to turn cannibal!"

"Your gut's probably scarier than the gun," adds a second voice and Ignis very carefully does not react to that tidbit even as fear lays its cold hand on his back, traces its finger down his spine and draws out nervous sweat.

He's glad now that he'd moved so slowly pulling out his tags. Glad and careful, oh so careful not to touch the wound in his ego that has reopened and is bleeding bitterness into his heart because he can overwhelm a few daemons with the brute power of his magic and can wander the woods on his own in the dark but he apparently still can't tell when someone has a gun pointed at him. Guns are dead things, after all. Details that magic can't fill in for him.

_Not yet. Not yet! But I have the rest of my life to learn._

"I can feed and provision you," he tells her. "And point you to the nearest Haven. I cannot spare the time to escort you, however."

"That's enough. That's more than enough," says Munia. "Thanks"

Relief makes her relax enough to drop the military cadence and with it the h from her words, leaving only the hard t sounds, and it's enough for his lagging memory to finally catch up. "Ah. You're Imperials."

He can hear her choke on incredulity. "I- yeah? _Obviously?_ I'd think the uniform and the gun are good clues! Unless you're blind-"

"Indeed." He reaches up and pulls off the mirrored glasses, lets her see the wreckage of his face. "I am, in fact, blind. Do you have any food allergies I need to be aware of?"

". . . you're blind."

From the rocks, "Wait, seriously? I'm coming out."

"So am I," says the third voice, thin and warbling around the edges with age.

With a few minutes the three women —the sisters Munia and Perdita, and their aged friend Trill— are bumbling around awkwardly, trying to help while pretending not to gawk. He sets them to gathering wood for a quick fire, and begins pulling his necessities from the Armiger. The flashy display of Royal magic has them whispering again to each other, speculating about his origins and why he'd bother to help them, worried that are finally quashed by Trill.

"Glaive, maybe. Popping things out of the air. 's why that gun meant nothing to him," says Trill. "You bet he could have killed all of us, easy. He didn't though, and he wouldn't be wasting food on us if he meant to later. So never mind anything else."

A practical attitude. 

By the time the women return he has the little wood burning camp stove Gladio bought him so long ago out and ready, the pan oiled, the fish filleted. Fish is always the easiest for him to cook these days, the Armiger being full of them from-

_-Last one, promise!-_

-and Ignis himself is practical as well, refusing to let that bounty go to waste. 

He's seasons them with salt and pepper and rosemary and a gentle glaze of magic to soothe the nerves. The fire laid, he kindles it with a rush of magic and a snap of his fingers, politely ignoring the startled yelps of his audience, and begins to cook.

The fish fry quick but are eaten even quicker. From the sound of the soft curses and the stifled laughter, the enthusiastic chewing, the women don't even bother with the forks and knives he's pulled out, and are happily burning fingertips and tongues. They've stuffed themselves by the time it's his turn to eat, which suits him. He prefers to let them digest in peace and soak up a little more of his magic before he sends them off. 

_Which reminds me. I said I'd provision them, but I can't give them fish. They'll turn much too quickly. I can't give them caned goods, either. Too heavy for them to carry long distance when they also need to carry water and weapons. I need something relatively light, that won't spoil, that I can cook for them quickly . . ._

He snaps his fingers. "That's i-"

"Yeep!" squeaks Perdita.

There's an awkward pause. 

"Oh. You. Don't always start fires," the woman says, and laughs awkwardly.

". . . no," he answers, and then crams the last forkful of fish into his mouth to stop any of the words that want to come out, pushed by the sudden wave of nostalgia for those early days when Prompto would trip over his own tongue, and Gladio was there to tease him, and Noctis would sit by Ignis' side, beautiful and near-silent, his dark eyes narrowed and pink lips bitten to hold back laughter.

Dinner is finished, swallowed and gone, and so must be his flight of fancy. "Please find some moss and scrub clean the plates and utensils. I assume you have bags, knapsacks, that sort of thing?" At their assent he continues, "Provisioning you will take about half an hour. Please don't disturb me while I work."

Because he's lost enough time out here, and is likely to lose more if he gets tangled in these people, their stories and their needs. Best to get this done quickly and return to his search.

He summons his kettle and sets water from his canteen on to boil. Then he summons forth the supplies he'd salvaged from his visit to the abandoned Galdin Quay, held in eternal freshness by the Armiger's stasis. Oats and flour, sugar and salt, butter and baking soda, all into a bowl, mixed with a knife, gradually adding in hot water until he has a sweet-salty sticky mess. This he presses into one of his battered tin travelling pans, much dented from camping with a lout like-

_-Don't know why you bother. Be simpler to feed His Whine-ness cheese and crackers, and he'd probably be just as appreciative-_

-who's only use was to buy fancy camping gadgets. Like the little collapsible oven Ignis now props over the top of the woodstove. Then he cheats the pre-heat with another surge of subtle magic, and slips the pan in. 

"You can bake out here?" says Trill, the idea awing her as nothing else has. 

Twelve minutes in the oven and then out it comes to cool on a rock while its twin is sent in next. Ignis has enough for three batches, and each one he soaks in magic to strengthen the body, protect from sickness and status effects. If Trill is as elderly as she sounds, she'll need all this for the trek ahead.

As he works he has the women cut the finished oatcakes into squares and wrap them in clean shirts, telling them, "They'll keep for about a week as long as they're out of the damp. You head in that direction," he points back from whence he came, "for about five hours and you'll find a Haven. Keep going in that same direction for a few days and you'll find the train tracks. Follow them east to a train station. There are Hunter patrols checking in regularly for refugees."

". . . but we're Niflheimers. Will they . . .?"

"The Hunters won't care," he tells them. "Neither will the Glaive. The war is over, and the long Dark has come. Every pair of hands will be needed if anyone is to survive."

They are silenced by that, and stay silent as he breaks down the oven, douses the stove's fire with a pass of icy power, and banished everything back into the Armiger to be cleaned later. It pains him to be so sloppy but he _must_ make the next Haven before exhaustion takes him. He can indulge in cleanliness once he's safely barricaded behind walls of ancient light.

It's when he's turning to go that Munia asks, " _Will_ any of us survive? The sun is gone, and the demons. . ."

He pauses. Turns back to her. "The sun will return. It will take years, but it will return." And he smiles because, "I've _seen_ it."

Then he leaves. 

He has no more time to waste.


	3. Chapter 3

The old Blind Baker fable has got it right: there's nothing better for an upset stomach than simple starches, and it doesn't get much simpler than unleavened bread. You can make this recipe at home with a minimum of three ingredients and some basic kitchen magic. Suitable for apprentice bakers and beginner kitchen witches alike (see next page for gluten-free alternatives.)

\- The Wonder Chef's Guide to Wondrous Cooking

  
After so long in lush, cooling damp of Tenebrae's mountain forests, Ignis finds the tropical heat of northern Cleigne almost unbearably stifling. He tugs at the neck of his t-shirt, thinking wistfully of Gladio's bad habit of bare-chested escapades. 

_I wonder if he's still parading around like that even when it's too dark for anyone to see._

Possibly. No, probably. Last he's heard Gladio has been roaming the far reaches of Duscae and rounding up survivors. Doubtless presenting such attractive bait would make his job much easier. 

_All he'd need is a belt lamp and he'd have his own spotlight display._

Well, Ignis has no such advantages. Not after the Crystal has etched its vengeance into his skin, after daemons have cut him and bit him, after fire and acid and tumbles through ruins. Just as well, then, that he's pursuing the secrets of the gods instead of those of the flesh.

He does have to deal with his fellow man occasionally, however, to resupply on essential curatives, to get new changes of clothing, to check if there are any hunts along his way to his next objective. Which is why he's here, a bare half-kilometre north of where his phone app tells him is the Hunter outpost of Jaldorn. 

Normally he'd be looking forward to a few days of running water, some new clothing, and someone else to cook his food.

Normally he'd be able to hear the sounds of life coming from an outpost when he's this close.

Though Jaldorn is a small enclave of only thirty people, there should still be enough noise for Ignis to pick up. Sounds of car engines, of radios playing, perhaps even the faint sounds of people calling to each other across the compound. Instead there is only the lonely song of the generators, a tuneless hum that weaves through the silence like a faded ribbon.

He frowns and swats idly at a mosquito. There had been no notice of relocation in the app, and it's extremely unlikely that they would have all left the compound, even for a difficult hunt. So what has happened? He's become sensitive enough to Starscourge to know it isn't daemons, but that still leaves a buffet of disasters, ranging from a behemoth attack to all-too-human bandits having raided the compound. 

Should he investigate, or leave well enough alone? Certainly anything that can silence thirty-odd Hunters would be more than a match for himself . . . but there might also be people in need of aid. 

The urgency of his mission weighs heavily on him. Can he truly afford to involve himself? To risk himself and the hope he represents?

Can he afford not to, when the Hunters are so crucial to the fight against the Daemons? Abandoning them now would risk the long-term, and there's no point in saving Noctis from the clutches of Fate only to condemn him to a depopulated wasteland.

_Clearly I've decided already. Very well. Let's see what's been brewing in there._

Sneaking up on someone unseen isn't easy when blind, even with the darkness to veil him. He has to stretch his senses to the very limit, let his ears read the echos around him while his vague sense of light keeps him oriented toward the enclave. At least he's gotten better at this while roaming the tangled underbrush of Tenebrae. The leaves of ferns, thicker and waxier than the delicate lacework of those from the northern redwood forests, are easy to gently push aside and slip past. The high grass makes excellent cover as he ghosts from behind tree to tree, and he makes sure to pass behind dangling vines as often as possible to break up whatever silhouette might give him away. 

The sound of his passage is the hush of a breeze, his magical senses the delicate web of a spider, spun out in faint threads to try and catch against the prism of human auras, the rough-hewn crystal of animal souls. He has a vague idea of the encampment's likely layout, with a chainlink fence and the usual metal scaffolding for lookouts, the road in leading to a communal parking area. There's definitely a sleeper caravan and Culless Munitions' truck . . .

He can feel the edge of the forest now, and the sharp line of the road heading into some sort of cavern, the echoes so familiar from when he'd scoured the abandoned cellars and vaults of Fenestala Manor. The hard lines and angles of the metal scaffolding take sketchy shape, and from their position he can guess the fenceline. 

It takes him perhaps ten minutes to creep into position out of sight of the entrance, to scale the fence as slow as a stalking coerl and drop down inside the compound, and he's slinking toward the vague impression of buildings off to his left when his prey finally snags in his web.

A- no. Two, five, a dozen? No, more, some are simply weaker, harder to catch. He tucks himself against a pile of crates overflowing with bulette carapaces and does his best to sort out the tangle.

It's as if all of the Hunters have crammed themselves into one building. But why-?

Understanding comes moments later when the wavering presence of someone small, someone young? moves through the others and the wash of healing magic follows in their wake. Something has indeed happened to lay low all the Hunters of this enclave, and it seems like there's only one person left to nurse the lot. And yet, if it had been battle injuries, those curatives should have had the rest of the Hunters back on their feet within hours. . . 

_It must be an epidemic. Some sickness has struck them all down, and no one is left to explain to the poor child the dangers of using potions on the infected._

All thoughts of stealth are discarded. He jerks to his feet and sprints toward the mass of human auras, the sharp sounds of his footsteps on cement finally allowing him to hear-see-know the world around him, the rise of buildings and the piles of garula tusks, the generators and the abandoned cars, the oil drums and the munitions crates. He dodges around the radio tower at top speed, and it's only once he finds the door to the sickroom that he slows, just long enough to fling open the door and enter and hit a wall of _stench_.

Vomit. Urine. Feces and rancid sweat and spoilt magic. 

He stumbles backward under the blow, gagging and retching, groping in his pockets for his handkerchief. When he pulls it out he draws sprigs of lavender from the Armiger. These he charges with a rough burst of kitchen magic, then sandwiches them between the cloth folds, finally tying the whole across his face as a makeshift antiseptic mask.

Only then does he dare venture into the hell he has opened-

-and immediately ducks as something flies at his face. 

"S-stay away! I won't let you hurt them!" It's the high, thin voice of a boy, breaking in the middle with stress and puberty. From his general shape Ignis estimates him twelve, perhaps thirteen years of age. Certainly no older.

"I am not here to hurt anyone," he says in his best calm, professional voice. He straightens and holds out a hand, letting healing magic spark and flare from his fingers. "I am here to help. Are you alone? What has happened?"

"Help. Help?" whimpers the child. "You're. Not a bandit. You'll. _Help_." 

Ignis can hear the tears in that young voice, and makes quick strides over to the child, careful of his footing in this room crowded with bodies, on the floor, on low cots, on low benches. His searching hands find the child's shoulders, and he gently pulls the boy into an embrace. The potions have just been administered. They have time.

Time that the child needs, needs as badly as he needs Ignis' embrace, surging forward to bury his face in Ignis' chest, wrap his arms around Ignis' waist and clutch at his shirt with desperation that turns his little fingers to claws of steel. The thin frame trembles, a leaf in a storm of emotion, and Ignis runs his fingers through tight curls of hair, murmurs words of comfort, and braces himself against the flood of tears and gibbering hysterics that the boy unleashes in wracking coughs and convulsive sobs. 

Long experience with Noctis' nightmares makes it easy for Ignis to play sheltering tree against that storm, mouth providing a gentle balm of reassurances while his brain works overtime to assess the scene. 

This seems to have been the infirmary to judge from all the cots, the shadow-shapes of IV poles and the boxy obstacles scattered about that hint at monitoring equipment. So they obviously had someone qualified on hand long enough to move everyone into care and then, what? Succumbed themselves, most likely. So whatever this is it is extremely fast acting.

The rasping breathing of the infected swirls around him and the child like muddy water, their moans like occasional flotsam. Somewhere off in the corner there's the dry, ugly sound of someone retching on an empty stomach, but it soon falls silent again. Indigestion and unconsciousness. 

The child comes to an uneasy peace, sniffling into the tear-soaked and snot-sticky front of Ignis' shirt. Ignis keeps stroking the boy's head, keeping his touch steady and gentle, and asks, "What is your name?"

"Ze-ze-zephyr. Bu~t everyone. Everyone calls me Zepphy."

"Very good. I will do everything I can to help, Zepphy, but first I need you to tell me, slowly, what has happened. Take your time," he adds. "Make sure you speak clearly, and include all the details you can, no matter how small. While you do that, I am going to change my shirt, and I will clean this place, and these people. Ah, before that- why are the windows shut? May I open them?"

"I- before they all went to sleep- they kept saying they were too cold. So, I got them blankets and closed the windows."

Fever as well, then. 

"I see. You did well, but now we must air this place out. Now, please begin with your story."

Past the stammering and sobs, Zepphy's story turns out to be remarkably simple, even with all the details Ignis pulls from him with careful guiding questions. 

Roughly four days ago, a young Hunter had returned from the swamps after a gurangatch hunt, complaining of headaches and a terrible taste in her mouth. Within hours she was in the infirmary, wretchedly sick. It had been raining heavily, and everyone assumed she'd caught a minor flu. By the next morning, however, many of the outpost's Hunters were also complaining of a foul taste in their mouth, and were unable to stomach their breakfasts. The original Hunter succumbed to fever and passed into unconsciousness by the afternoon. The doctor, an elderly man who used to be 'in the army' evidently recognized the beginnings of an epidemic, and had the forethought to move as many people into the infirmary as possible before they all collapsed.

Now Zepphy's story comes slower. "It was. So fast. E-everyone wound up sick. Except. Except me. E-e-e-ven Doctor Brahe. He tried to call someone on his phone but no one ever answered and then he went to sleep and I tried the other Hunters' phones but I. I don't know anyone's passwords and I don't know how to use the radio and everyone kept getting worse so I had to stay in here. I. I give them water like the doctor said to, and then I found the potions in the back and I thought- but I keep using them but everyone keeps getting sick again and I've- n-n-naked!" he squeaks, the shock of Ignis stripping the first of the patients enough to stop a second tumble into hysterics. 

"Everyone is going to be naked," Ignis tells Zepphy, with grim amusement at the irony of his earlier thoughts of Gladio. "Ourselves included. We are going to take every stitch of clothing, every single blanket and pillow, and _burn them._ Then I'm going to scrub everyone and everything with hot water, soap, and antiseptic while you take a bath, and then go through all the other houses and bring fresh clothing and bedding for the patients."

"But-"

He puts an authoritative firmness into his words. "If they don't get clean they won't get better. Now help me toss all this outside in the middle of the road where it'll be safe to burn." The boy might have gone nose-blind but Ignis certainly hasn't, and he's not about to try cleaning these foul rags. Better to be rid of them and start fresh.

"Y-yessir!"

They labour mightily for the next few hours, first hauling piles of filthy cloth outside for Ignis to burn with gouts of cleansing flame, then hauling a multitude of buckets into the infirmary and filling them with the hottest water possible from the tap. Ignis has Zepphy dig out the sponges and the scrub brushes and the soap, and together they clean the entire place, literally from top to bottom as Ignis even mops the walls. From there both Ignis and Zepphy sponge bathe, Ignis discarding his handkerchief mask and pulling out fresh clothing from the Armiger to dress himself, and sending Zepphy out to fetch himself the same, as well as the first of the new bedding. 

It's been hours of brutal labour, and exhaustion makes lead of Ignis' bones and tangled wire of his shoulders. By now he's pinpointed the illness: Sour Fever, a highly virulent infection often carried by members of the sahagin family. As a resident of Lucis, Ignis had been privileged enough to be vaccinated against it along with a host of other such maladies, and Zepphy's accent marks him as once having been a resident of Altissa and thus likely also immunized. 

But the Hunters are a mixed bag, many of them from dying, rural towns with uncertain access to medical care, a problem exacerbated by the many years of war. It isn't difficult to imagine that these poor people hadn't had access to adult boosters, or even been vaccinated in the first place. And so, when an infected woman stumbled back into their camp . . . 

He handles bathing each person as professionally as possible. In a way he's grateful for his blindness, as it grants them at least the illusion of dignity, though it means he must be a little more handsy than he'd prefer. 

They moan and shift at each pass of his soapy sponge, too weak to squirm. They are each caked with filth, and he has to empty bucket after bucket into the infirmary's bathroom toilet. The air clears of the last of the stench, replaced with the sharp smell of antiseptic and the soothing freshness of soap, and Ignis and Zepphy dress each person in a clean shirt and swaddle them in a new blanket, slipping in a bedpan for the unpleasant eventualities.

It is only then that Ignis presses Zepphy down into his own blanket nest Ignis has built for him in a corner off the doctor's tiny office. He gives the boy a cup of water, the mug emptied and rinsed of the doctor's cold coffee, and summons oatcakes from the Armiger for him to eat. After the incident with those women in Tenebrae, he's made a habit of having some on hand, just in case, and they've been useful many times in the years since. Now they work their humble magic once again, Ignis pleased to hear the child immediately begin to eat.

"Make sure to chew slowly so as not to choke."

"Ye'sssr," is the obedient mumble. 

He crouches down in from of Zepphy. "Good. Now, I know what's wrong with these people. They have what's called Sour Fever. You and I were vaccinated -shots, needles-," he elaborates. "And that's why we're safe, but they were not. You were _not_ left alone to look after everyone because you were bad and were being punished by the gods," he makes sure to add, too familiar with the fears of a child. "Now, the reason that the potions didn't work is because potions heal things that are alive. Your friends are alive, but the sickness inside them is also alive. So by using potions, you were simply healing both the good and the bad. Do you understand?"

"K-kinda? Does that mean. Does that mean I was making it worse?!"

" _No_." He must be absolutely firm here, or this might haunt the boy for the rest of his life. "All you did was keep them in balance, which kept them alive long enough for me to come and help. You understand? You kept them from getting worse. You kept them from dying. You _protected_ them."

He hears the catch in Zepphy's breathing, the wet sniffle, and follows to sound with his hand to pat Zepphy's head gently. "Take your time. Cry it out. All your work is done for now, so once you're finished eating you can bed down and take a rest."

He stands and heads back into the sickroom. He must leave Zepphy to cry alone this time. There is still work that needs doing.

Now, finally, with the immediate concerns out of the way, he can try calling for help. 

With the Scourge polluting the leylines, the network has become less reliable, the simple magitek of their phones ill-equipped to deal with the fluctuating magical energy and the distorted elemental power. Bad weather, tainted by Ramuh's power, makes it even worse, which is no doubt the reason poor Doctor Brahe couldn't reach anyone with his desperate pleas for help. 

But the weather has cleared, Ignis' phone is the most advanced model last produced in Lucis, and he himself has gotten much more adept at manipulating magic. If there's a chance to contact the outside world, it's in Ignis' hands. And if he can't, well, there's still there's possibility of logging onto the internet and finding a treatment guide online. 

"Moogle: phone Prompto," he commands.

The hope that rises when the line connects goes stale after the fifth ring, and flattens like a bad soufflé after the eighth. He sighs when he's shunted to the voicemail, and again when it proudly declares,

«You've reached the personal number of _Sky God Prompto_ , captain of the Great Zegnatus! I can't come to the phone right now 'cause I'm too busy defending the world from flying terrors, but leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as my schedule clears!»

Ignis waits obediently for the tone. "Prompto, this is Ignis. There's a Sour Fever epidemic in the Hunter outpost of Jaldorn. Almost thirty people infected and in critical condition. I'm alone with a preteen boy as my only helper, so any aide would be appreciated. The coordinates are as follows." He pings his locater phone app and carefully repeats the string of numbers it recites before adding, "I'll be phoning Gladio after this, so be sure to coordinate with him so as to avoid redundancy."

His call to Gladio goes unanswered as well. He leaves the same message, hangs up, and takes a moment to enjoy silence and uninfected air and suddenly, horribly, finds himself battling against a childish fit of _loneliness_.

It's ridiculous when there's so much more at stake here. So selfish to be caught up in his own, petty hurt when the lives of thirty-some people hang in the balance. And yet he can't seem to swallow down this wretched knot in his throat, can't ignore the aching wish to speak and be _answered_. 

And even worse, he can't ignore the petulant thought of how often they have reminded him to keep in touch only to be absent the one time in two years he does reach out. Utterly unfair of him considering the rising level of danger and how busy they both are protecting the civilians, even worse considering that he himself chose to go out into the dark alone despite their offers of companionship. 

_You have not been abandoned_ , he tells himself sternly. _You are simply living, for the first time, on your own. There is no Citadel network to help, no Crownsguard as backup, no second pair of hands to take up the slack. You are finally responsible for yourself and your own messes, and this wallowing despair is both unseemly and infantile._

Prompto is now responsible for Zegnatus Keep and coordinating the worldwide Glaive deployments with Cor. Gladio has been escorting caravans of refugees and supplies from settlement to settlement. They have both taken up their burdens with grace, and now Ignis feels neglected for having to endure emptying bedpans without someone to pat his head? Foolishness.

 _It is_ certainly _no way for a servant of the King to behave._

At least _that_ thought spurs him into action. He'll gladly settle for shame if sound logic will not work.

"Moogle: search 'Sour Fever.'"

He remembers most of what he was taught in his nursing classes at the Citadel for what to watch for and what to do if Noctis fell ill, but a refresher is welcome when faced with this sort of trial. That the treatment is relatively simple is an unexpected boon. As for the warning that 'the true challenges is to ensure that the patient not vomit out the medicine,' he is uniquely suited to solving that problem. 

He considers how much he can likely salvage from the kitchens of the infected. The recipe he has in mind needs only three ingredients and they're mostly staples, but he's learnt not to count on other people's common sense about the kitchen.

He sets up his cooking in the kitchen of the house closest to the infirmary, enjoying the luxury of a gas stove and a real oven. He then spends a quick few minutes exploring the Hunter outpost, slipping into empty homes and riffling through pantries, letting his magical senses guide him to what he needs. To settle the nausea and soak up all the extra acid in their stomachs they're going to need starches, plain, easy to digest ones, which means bread. And to make bread he needs flour, and a great deal of it if he's to feed them for several days.

He tosses each bag he finds into the Armiger, shamelessly abusing the sacred magics to ferry the lot back to the kitchen he's chosen as his base. There, he lets his magic soak into the salt and flour and water as he kneads the dough for unleavened bread, infusing it with the power to cleanse toxins and soothe the digestion. 

Into the oven it goes in flat little rounds. He cooks until the kitchen is filled with their simple, homey scent, until he has stacks of flatbread twenty rounds high, until his hands ache and his shoulders howl for mercy, and when he is done he is drained, utterly. His magic is spent, his body is flagging, his will is a flickering candle. It's been approximately thirteen hours since he set out from his morning camp, since he arrived and has been labouring like a honeybee amid foulness and infection.

And he still has work to do.

But he can't seem to get up from his slump against the counter.

He tries to push himself with thoughts of those thirty people, with poor Zepphy, and finds he can't quite care about them right now. Needy strangers who have trapped him here, who will take and take and _take_ , eating Ignis' food and Ignis' time. 

He tries to shame himself with thoughts of Noctis, of how disappointed Ignis' king would be to see him indifferent and ineffective in the face of this disaster, but Noctis is _gone_ , and the thought of him only brings back the longings of earlier. 

He swears tiredly and sneaks bread from the pile on the counter, hoping some fuel in his belly will help him get moving once more, but finds himself instead nibbling at it sullenly, unable to taste anything except his own bitterness.

If he doesn't get up soon, the fresh bread will get cold, hard, stale. A waste.

It's that thought that finally gets him moving, all the while wondering if he's gone maudlin for allowing himself to be so bogged down by his emotions, or if he's simply getting old, tiering out faster than his days of all-nighters studying for college and looking after Noctis and attending Council and training as a Crownsguard. He used to be able to do _so much_.

_Now a bit of cleaning and some basic baking are all it takes to incapacitate me. No wonder the gods let me fumble about in my search to thwart their plans of grand destiny. A decent coffee spill and some biscuits are all that's needed to disable me._

He stretches sore muscles, slow and careful, letting his body warm up again after sulking on the floor. His spine makes a satisfying string of pops, and his shoulders burn pleasantly as he locks fingers and extends his arms, forcing the tendons to unknot, his muscle to unclench. Toe touches and then a few lunges to stretch the legs, and he almost feels like a working body again. His humanity, alas, he cannot restore with simple exercise. This will have to be enough.

His commandeered house provides him with a large plastic laundry basket which he fills with the bread to overflowing. This he carefully ferries to the infirmary, where he is met with the sound of retching but no scent of vomit. These people have likely nothing left to bring up. He's anticipating a long night of coaxing them to eat despite their troubled guts . . . 

. . . but then one of the sick closeby starts to sniff the air. And another. And more, as the smell of fresh bread unfurls like a banner, blanketing the entire ward in soft snuffling and even silencing the retching, and soon Ignis hears it: the first, low grumble of hunger from one of the patients. 

_For unleavened bread? Are they all starving from the past few days or- Did I perhaps use more magic than I thought? Is that why I was so tired? Was I in stasis?_

It has never been a problem for him before, not with enchanting, not with healing, and certainly not with kitchen magic. 

_But I have also never used kitchen magic in such quantity, or to help heal such seriously ill people._

Something to chew on later. For now he has patients to carefully coax to sit, their trembling frames too-hot, their shirts already beginning to dampen with sweat, as he feeds them bread one bite at a time. 

At some point Zepphy stumbles, yawning, out of the back office, and mumbles a delighted, "Smells so good. Can I have some?"

Ignis' memory salts the wound of his conscience with his own indifference to the fate of this child. Gods but he can be a cold bastard. "Of course," he says, and hands Zepphy one of the loaves from the bottom of the pile, kept warm under its fellows. "Fresh from the oven."

"Oh. You made these?"

"In one of the kitchens of the empty houses, yes. Can you help me feed everyone? It will stop their nausea so we can give them their medication."

"Yessir!"

The cleaning had been a gruelling trial of endurance. This is something easier, something gentler on both nurses and patients, with the kitchen magic in the bread joining with everyone's animal hunger to keep them from fussing. It takes time as Ignis and Zepphy have to ensure no one chokes or vomits back up their food, but it's ultimately a heartening task that fills the infirmary with the quiet sounds of contentment, the sighs of relief.

"They're so much better," says Zepphy. "They don't look like they're gonna barf anymore."

"That was the idea," Ignis drawls, letting dry humour glaze over the relief and the taste of success take the now-familiar bitterness from his mouth. If he could see he could watch the pain ease from clouded brows and pale faces take on more colour. . . 

_Enough self-pity. I've learnt to hear the difference in people's breathing. I can test their temperature with touch. And though I'm no white mage, my mastery of healing magics is starting to deepen as well._

Zepphy chatters on, "How did you do it? You didn't even use medicine or magic! Unless the bread is magic," he laughs. "It tastes good enough to be-"

"It is," Ignis says, coming out of his fog of thoughts. "Magic, that is."

"It _is?!_ "

"Yes, but I fear such simple kitchen magic won't be enough, which is why I need you to help me search for the medicine we'll need to properly treat them. We're looking for a drug called Titosetaphrim. You'll have to read the labels on the bottles for me."

"O-oh. Yessir. Um. Doctor Brahe keeps the medicines back in his office cabinet. I can show you?"

"Yes, take me there, please. We want to give them their medication as quickly as possible while their stomachs are settled."

"Ah, right!"

It's a large metal security cabinet, and Ignis gives quiet thanks that the doctor hadn't bothered to lock it before he'd succumbed to Sour Fever. He starts from the highest shelf, handing bottles to Zepphy and listening to the boy stammer out the first few syllables before handing him a new one. 

"Titosermazopram. Um. Can I ask. . . ?"

"Yes?" Ignis makes a slow pass with his hands, careful to reach all the way to the back of the shelf. Yes, it seems they've emptied this one, and so far there hasn't been any sign of organization he recognizes. They really _will_ have to go through each bottle at this rate. 

"Do you. Not know how to read? Is that how come I have to?"

"I can't read because I'm blind. I have a phone app I can use to read the labels, but this is quicker. Read this one next, please." 

"You don't _act_ blind," accuses Zepphy.

"The bottle, Zepphy. Your friends are counting on us to get this done quickly."

"Warfarin." And then, grumbled very softly, "It's okay if you can't read. You don't have to _lie_ about it."

Ignis sighs. Rests his forehead against the cool metal shelf to try and dull the exhaustion headache, and coaxes from himself a little extra patience, a little more energy. As flattering as it might be to have his capabilities praised, he's likely to be trapped here for the next few days with only Zepphy for company, and Ignis isn't about to endure a preteen's selfrighteous sulking through the whole thing. He turns and kneels down, reaching out to find Zepphy's chin, turning the boy's face to his own. Then he takes off his dark glasses.

"O-oh."

"If you are _quite_ finished." He thrusts the next bottle into Zepphy's hands.

". . . yessir."

Zepphy is much quieter after that, and things go faster. They find the Titosetaphrim, and Zepphy reads out the dosage for Ignis. Medicating all the Hunters is even easier than feeding them; vomiting as they have been, they're all desperate for water and swallow down their pills without issue. 

Somehow it's worse than all the lifting and cooking and cleaning. This agonizing final task goes on and on, time seemingly dragging its nails against his exhaustion in a desperate bid to linger past endurance. The sound of each swallow hammers at his brain. When they're done the release is so terrible, so abrupt, that he staggers over to a wall and simply slides down it, his rump hitting the tile floor with a painful thump. He draws his legs up, wraps his arms around them and lets himself finally sag, head pillowed on his knees.

"Sir?!"

"I'm only tired," he tells Zepphy. "I've been working for almost fifteen hours straight now. You needn't worry," he adds. "I would tell you if I was infected. Is there bread left?"

"Yessir."

He eats what he's given, slowly, savouring the simple fare. _A little too much salt, perhaps._

Zepphy's gone back into the doctor's office, and Ignis thinks the boy has gone to bed down for the night until a few minutes later he hears hurried steps coming back, and Zepphy says, "Here. I, um. Made supper?"

Familiar scent carried on a puff of steam. Ignis takes the Cup Noodles and the plastic fork from Zepphy's hands, murmuring a low, "Thank you," and trying not to completely crumple under this blow of nostalgia. 

Has Gladio gotten Ignis' message yet? Has Prompto? Is help coming? Or is there none to spare?

_Tomorrow. I'll check my messages tomorrow._

He eats and feels the warmth soak into his gut, into his bones, feels himself slipping closer to the edges of darkness.

". . . I'm sorry I called you a liar," says Zepphy.

"S'allright"

"Will you. Teach me to make magic bread? Please?"

"Mmmmm. T'morrow."

"Yessir. Tomorrow."

He doesn't remember much after that, slipping under the surface of sleep and sinking deep into is black waters. Zepphy must have taken the empty cup away from him, must have wrapped him in spare bedding, because Ignis awakes covered in a blanket and not the dregs of his soup. He is stiff, but no worse than the times he's bedded down in ruins or up a tree. He gets up and stretches, does the morning rounds of emptying bedpans, and by the time he's done Zepphy is awake, and they make the morning bread together.

Ignis spends three more days in that little Hunter settlement, nursing, cleaning, and baking. It's gruelling work and it's only his experiences with nursing Noctis that keep him going, keeps him optimistic and help him weather the filth and grind of it all. He stokes the flames of his will and _burns_ through every obstacle, and his reward is that by the time he's ready to leave all the Hunters are on the road to recovery, several of them up and about and able to help Zepphy tend to the others.

He leaves early after baking the last morning's breakfast bread. He doesn't say goodbye. He has already lingered overlong.

He's two days out from Jaldorn when he realizes he never checked his phone messages. 


	4. Chapter 4

The annual vigil for missing children will be held at the town hall. Grieving families are invited to bring mementos and may speak during vigil, though we ask that no speech go beyond the 5 minute mark out of respect for everyone's needs. Donations of sugar cookies for the Blind Baker's shrine are to be left with . . .

\- memo posted on the town notice board in Arni village

  
Ignis drifts across the frozen hills of Niflheim like a stray thought. The snow swirls about him in icy plumes, glittering to his senses with Shiva's power even this far south of her discarded husk. 

He shivers, and not from the cold. The vengeance of the gods is potent, far reaching, undying. So close to his goal he finds himself wondering what his own fate will be at their hands. They know he seeks to thwart their plan of sacrifice, and it is not like them to be merciful to those who would defy their will. When will they move against him? When will they strike him down? When will they punish him, as they have punished Ardyn the Accursed?

He fights against these dark thoughts even as he fights against the freezing wind. The passage of time drags at him, the looming deadline shadows his every waking moment, haunts him in his dreams. He has lost track of so much, of Prompto and Gladio and the rest of the Hunters, yet he knows to the hour how long it has been since Noctis vanished from the centre of his orbit and left him spinning through the darkness on this unknown collision course with destiny, a strange and looping path that has taken him across the face of Eos.

Now it's brought him back to Nifleheim in hopes of finding one of Besithia's off-shoot laboratories, a remote facility tucked up against the spine of the Empire's southern mountain range. It was engaged in the study of ancient Solheim magitek, including a so-called 'Omega weapon' supposedly capable of battling the gods, and it might provide the final clues Ignis needs on how to create an anti-Scourge weapon.

Or so he hopes. Faint hopes, a spider's thread to cling to, to follow across this barren land of ice. He buries his face in the rough wool of his looted Imperial scarf. Perhaps he'll find another abandoned house to take shelter in for the night. They're dotted about these parts. Lonely farms, mostly, though there's been a few gas stations, along with their ubiquitous Crow's Nests, and once an Imperial guard post. Ignis has been careful to loot every one of them, grateful for the Armiger's weightless storage which allows him to take with him the masses of dry goods other looters have been forced to leave behind. Unleavened bread and oatcakes have been his regular fare for years now, supplemented by whatever wild vegetables he can scavenge, whatever meat untainted by Scourge he can hunt. 

The wind is shifting. He lifts his head and breathes deeply, and carried on its wings he finds the scent of woodsmoke and rust, and in its song he hears the shape of buildings ahead, small and clustered close to the great cliffs of the mountains. A town. People. 

_Scavengers or residents?_ he wonders. _And why is there a town in such a remote area? It can't be the laboratory. I'm still too far from the coordinates._

Difficult to read the echo-shape of things with the wind coiling around itself. Better to rely on magic. 

He has to search the currents of sound carefully to find the rough shape of a tree, drooping under the weight of its snow-covered boughs. He goes to lean against the trunk in the lee of the wind, breathing in the scent of spruce, before allowing his magical senses drift toward the welcoming lamp-light of human souls.

The first thing he notices is the wellspring of Titan's power gushing from the depths of winding tunnels out through the holes bored in the flanks of the nearest mountain.

 _Of course! A mining town._

Next he notices the people, a baker's dozen of them, all clustered close nearest to one of those wounds, with a wood fire burning at the centre of their ragged circle. 

_Odd for residents, common for scavengers making camp._

That only leaves the question as to whether to approach them or not. Scavengers are often vicious from desperation, jealous of whatever resources they've managed to claw from the ashes of this dying land . . . but just as often they are are lost and frightened, the last survivors of refugee camps that have been overrun by demons, or the straggling remains of supply caravans that were slaughtered by raiders. 

As he debates with himself, the wind delivers to him the final piece: the faint sounds of a man's voice,

"Daddy'll think of . . . . just . . . . calm, okay? Don't . . . "

Scavengers caught in the wilderness, a desperate parent, the mines so very close. It's not difficult to guess the rough outline of what has likely happened. Ignis shakes the snow from his hair and sets off at once.

"Ho, the camp!" he bellows as he nears. The snow is heavy against his shins as he literally ploughs his way toward them. He's starting to sweat under his coat. He hopes they're desperate enough to welcome him with words instead of drawn weapons.

"Stop right there! You take another step and I'll skewer you!"

No such luck, it seems. But threats are better than an immediate attack, so he holds his ground and waits for the sentry to decide what to do with him. 

"Now don't you even twitch," says the man. His voice is rough with the accent of a Niflheim native, loud enough that even the snow can't soften its edges. "Jelica! Come gimme a hand."

From off to the right floats a faint, "Minute!" 

Ignis waits, patient despite the chill nipping at the tips of his ears, glad of his scarf that keeps snowflakes from drifting down his collar, and taking the opportunity to get a better picture of these people. The man in front of him isn't particularly large, closer to Cid's build and height than Ignis' own, but from his posture as he holds his spear he's got combat experience. Nor is he the only sentry. Three more have been stationed about the perimeter of this camp, though one of them is trudging closer. She's slow and clumsy in the snow. She's also always careful where she points her gun. Another trained fighter, then.

Ignis smiles grimly into the folds of his scarf. The ability to trace the outline of a person's weapon has been a hard-won skill. It relies on detecting the faint glimmer of the wielder's aura seeping into the metal, and it isn't entirely reliable, but it's been invaluable as people became suspicious of any wanderer, as raiders grow in numbers, as the infected grow desperate and savage in the face of their own inevitable doom.

When the woman, 'Jelica,' gets close enough she pants out, "You. Got someone. Faustus? Who. Who is it?"

"Dunno yet. Oi, stranger. Lemme see your face so's I know you ain't Scourged."

"Very well," Ignis says. He unwinds his scarf and tucks it into a coat pocket, then reaches up and pulls off his dark glasses.

'Faustus' whistles. "Sheeee-it. What happened to you? Wait, are you-"

"Blind?" Ignis interrupts. "Yes. I'm also unarmed, as you will find if you care to search me. Now, will you let me enter your camp, or must I return to the storm?"

He's expecting suspicion, even incredulity. Instead, Jelica jerks upright and burbles, "Blind! Oh! _Oh!_ Wait-wait-wait! Are you-"

"Knock it off, Jelica," Faustus snaps. "That's bullshit urban myth."

She snaps right back, "Shut up! There ain't proof either way so why not ask?" Her voice turns sweet and eager. "Okay, so, blind guy. Do you . . ." she pauses, drawing out the moment. " . . . have any oatcakes?"

Ignis raises his eyebrows. Where is _this_ coming from? Have people been carrying tales? 

_Mind you, after eight years I've likely given them to hundreds of people. I suppose it's inevitable I be mentioned a few times to others. Still. An urban myth? Exactly what are they saying?_

He sets the thoughts aside for when he doesn't have weapons pointed at him. "I do, actually. Would you like some?"

Faustus chokes, coughs, and then sputters, "You _do?!_ I don't believe-" He cuts himself off with a shake of his head. "You know what? Fine. Gimme. If you have some you can join the camp."

"Thank you," is all Ignis says, judging it best to take this unexpected stroke of luck with good grace and few words. He slides his glasses back on, wincing at how the metal, so quickly chilled in this frigid air, bites at the bridge of his nose and freezes his sinuses. Then, from out of the inner pocket of his coat, he pulls the oatcakes, wrapped in one of his clean handkerchiefs. He'd made them two days ago, so they've gone dense and crumbly, and they crack a little as he hands them over to Faustus.

The two sentries pick open the handkerchief knot and stare at the oatcakes. It's actually Faustus who dares to try the first bite, breaking off a piece to shove in his mouth, chew slowly.

". . . 's good," he grunts. "Real good." More chewing. "Maybe even magic good. C'mon over to the fire and get warmed up. 'fraid we don't got much cheer to share, though. Bad situation with the kids. But then," he adds, in a slow, thoughtful tone, "I expect that's why you showed up, huh?"

Another cryptic remark. Ignis accepts this, too, without protest, instead asking, "What's happened?"

They don't answer, instead ushering him over to the fire and shooing someone out of their seat so as to sit Ignis down beside a man hunched over what Ignis' guesses is a two-way radio, to whom Faustus presents the bundle of oatcakes. 

It makes the man jerk, dropping the radio into the snow so he can cradle the oatcakes in shaking hands, as if Ignis' humble baked goods were some sort of holy relic. And though Ignis might have lost the ability to see facial expressions, it's easy enough to read the desperation in the man's hoarse voice when he asks, "Have- have you come to help us?"

"I would like to," Ignis temporizes. "But I've yet to understand the situation. Perhaps you could fill me in?"

"What _happened_ is that I was right about bleeding that fucker when we had the chance," says one of the women sitting around the fire. "Took our shit, kicked us out of camp, and now gonna get those kids ki-"

"Not the time for 'I told you so's," snaps another. 

The pair begin to squabble in earnest, and Ignis has to lean in close to catch the low, rickety voice of the man next to him. "A few days back we were driven out camp for wasting resources since we can't work as hard as the others. Most of us are like you. Atronia, she's missing an arm. Kaeso's got breathing trouble. Bad knees, bad heart, too old, that kind of thing. Me, I've . . . I've got kids. Three of them. Good kids, but they're-" his voice cracks, "-too young. To fight. Seven. Six. F-four." He has to take a moment, his breath rasping past the fear clogging his throat. "The mine here. It's mostly collapsed, so no-one's been able to loot it. We came hoping to find a way to get at the stuff inside. T-then. Last night. When we were sleeping. The kids snuck in. I guess. I guess they wanted to help. They're. Small enough to crawl through the gaps in the rockfalls. . . " His voice dribbles into silence.

Ignis nods. It's as he suspected, though really, the only doubt he had was if the children had ventured in on their own or had been sent by desperate parents. "Are they hurt?"

The man shakes his head. "No. But. Lost. Deep down. Real deep down. And we can't go in after them with the place so unstable. I know. I know this mine. I worked here, before. It's not a good place. Coming here was my idea, even though I _know-_ "

"And they have nothing to mark their passage?" Ignis interrupts. "No way to tell if they've been going in circles?"

Another jerky shake of the head. "They didn't know. They didn't think. And anyway it's too dangerous to have them start exploring. Deeper down there's . . . things. Bad things. Old things, left over from the Solarians. I know. I _know_ , but I still-"

"The radio, please," Ignis demands, holding out his hand. "I'd like to speak to them myself."

He is quickly introduced to Beth, a terribly earnest seven year old, who apologizes through her sobs for having taken the other children into the mines, for having gotten lost, for upsetting her father, for having gotten lost, for forgetting to mark her way, for taking the flashlight without permission, and for having gotten lost. Ignis accepts all of these, and coaxes the last few important details from her. Namely, that the three children are safely holed up in what must be an old foreman's office, that the battery for their flashlight is dying, that they have no map or means of recognizing the tunnels through which they passed. 

"I tried but it's all loops," says Beth. "And they all look the same."

That there is no sign of demons.

Yet.

Beth finishes with a plaintive, "I'm _tired_ , and my feet hurt and Pulli and Noddy are tired too and Noddy keeps crying."

"Little boys are like that sometimes," Ignis tells her. "Tell me, do the radio batteries match those in the flashlight?"

"Huh?"

He has to walk her through checking both sets of batteries, and swears silently when she tells him they can't be swapped. 

_Plan B, then_. "Beth, I will help you find your way out, but it requires some preparation beforehand. While I do that, you'll have to do something very difficult for me: you'll have to turn off your flashlight and sit in the dark for fifteen minutes. Can you do that?"

"In the dark?!" she squeaks. "For fifteen minutes?!" He can hear her dread, a warbling lilt in each word. "Does it- does it _have_ to be in the dark?"

He grants no clemency. "We need to save what remains of the battery for your trip out. You can stay on the radio and talk to your father the whole time, but you must turn off the flashlight. I know it will be frightening," he tells her, gentling his tone, "and the other children will no doubt get scared as well. But you can do this. You're a brave girl, and a clever one. I'm certain you can weather this and come out the other side, and your siblings with you."

It takes some more coaxing and reassurance, first from him and then from her father, but Beth finally bows to the inevitable and agrees tot turn off the flashlight for what will likely be the longest fifteen minutes of her life. 

Ignis has already begun pulling out his supplies from the Armiger. What he has in mind will be quick and simple to prepare. 

The little camp oven, now much battered and well-used, goes onto the campfire to begin to warm. Out comes his tin mixing bowl, his spatula, the butter, the flour, the sugar . . .

The expected protests, demands and questions from the adults of the camp are never voiced. Instead they all huddle around the fire and watch him cream butter and sugar with more urgency than anyone's ever made cookies before, anticipation in the angle they lean in toward him, their unvoiced hopes weighing the silence that settles over the group like another smothering snowfall. 

"How much longer?" Beth whimpers.

"Nine minutes," he tells the father, who relays the information before continuing to tell Beth terrible knock-knock jokes and anecdotes about her mother. Irena had apparently been a woman of many wild escapades. No doubt it's where Beth got her adventurous nature.

What worries Ignis the most at this point is if this will work as well without the chocolate. Chocolate is for temptation, for intimacy. It's a natural channel for magics that beckon people closer. Without it he must instead find some other bait for this hook, and as to that . . . 

_What do I know of drawing people closer?_

He stopped reaching out the moment he realized that his own emotions were a burden he was inflicting on a boy already overburdened with cares. Since then, Ignis has fought so _hard_ for distance, for a professionalism that allows him to weather the storm of personal feelings and Citadel politics, to balance duty and friendship. To hold himself aloof and become the unwavering pillar of support so desperately needed by his little knot of friends.

He fumbled badly when he was blinded, letting himself become fixated in his own losses instead of the larger picture, and his lapse nearly tore them all apart. Regaining his independence hadn't only been vital for his mad quest, it had been vital for the sake of Gladio and Prompto as well.

These past years have proven it to him. Prompto and Gladio have both been stretched to their limits shielding the sputtering flame of humanity. They certainly haven't needed the additional worry of a crippled friend obsessed with the secrets of the Astrals, desperate enough to wander the dark and paw through ancient rubble in hopes of unearthing the key to to a miracle. 

Now, though. Now he must work against almost twenty years of training and use his power to reach out.

With . . . cookies. Baking.

The wave of nostalgia hits him like a blow from Leviathan's fins and he goes under, suddenly drowning in memories he'd so long ago locked away: 

Noctis, back from Tenebrae and yet still so distant. He'd become blind to Ignis, his eyes clouded over with the image of fields of blue flowers, the white spires of a distant city, a golden young girl. He'd answered in nothing but single words and muted sighs, languished in his Citadel rooms for days, sleeping for endless hours.

Ignis had been so damn desperate. So willing to try anything. So when the first thing Noctis said directly to him was a wistful reminiscence about a pastry, Ignis had latched onto it as his only key to the glass prison separating him from his erstwhile friend. He'd marched into the palace kitchens, found the head chef, and had his first lesson that very afternoon.

He'd never gotten those damn tarts right.

His hands are tender on the sugar-dough as he carefully pats it into rounds for the two little travel baking trays, his fingers pressing flashes of the past into each one. This one - the first tarts, with strawberries, where Noctis had tried them and grunted only that they weren't right. This one - the apples and honey, that Noctis had eaten absently as he studied for exams. This one - the cranberries and maple sugar, the first ones Noctis had said he'd shared with Prompto. Each one a mute plea for Noctis to drift back form those distant shores. Each one . . . not _quite_ a failure. 

Noctis had returned to him. Slow and shy, a wild animal baited closer by tarts and pies and soups and rice bowls and kebabs and grilled fish and steak sandwiches and curries, and, and, and.

 _Come back,_ Ignis whispers to the Noctis in his past, to the Noctis lost to him in the Crystal, to the Noctis of the future that walks knowingly to his own doom. _Come back to me. I can help you. I can save you. I can-_

He shuts the door of the oven.

Magic swirls in coruscating patterns over each of his proto-cookies. It's beautiful. Captivating. Seductive. Perhaps not the most appropriate spell for calling children home, but Ignis will take what he can get. He hurries along the baking with just a touch more magic, and the air fills with the scent of caramelizing sugar.

"They should catch a whiff soon. Once they do, tell them to turn the light back on and follow their noses home," he tells the father. 

Beth is first confused by these instructions, then delighted as she reports, "I can smell it! I _can!_ It's sweet and warm, like mom was!"

"I can smell it, too," pipes up a second voice. "An' so can Pulli." 

The sighs of relief from the adults clustered around the campfire nearly drown out Beth's continuing narration of, "It's stronger by the door. I can turn the flashlight back on, right?"

"That's right, honey. You turn it back on and follow the smell back to Daddy. You don't have to rush. Just take your time, make sure the others don't trip, and stay careful all the way back, okay?"

It's at this point that Ignis excuses himself. The scent, and the memories it summons, are getting to him, his own magic slitting open wounds he'd thought long healed. He'll sense when the cookies are done baking. He can afford to go stand in the snow and the wind, and let their impersonal cold seep back into his blood.

But once away from the fire, he's rejoined by Faustus and Jelica. 

"Cookies to guide those kids home, huh? Not bad," grunts Faustus, respect edging into his words.

"They smell . . . " Jelica's voice falters, no longer the eager, bubbly flow from before. "They smell _familiar_. Like. Like something . . . like _someone_ . . . "

Ignis shrugs. "The recipe does better with chocolate. Since I had to do without, I compensated with rather more magic than I usually use, which seems to have resulted in a lure that's a little . . . broader in its range than I intended. Apologies. What do you intend to do once the children are back?" he asks, trying to steer the conversation away from anything to do with memories. With any luck it'll help the sharpness of his own fade.

Faustus takes the hint. "We were hoping to find that 'Sky God' people have been yappin' about. Not Ramuh. Some other one, supposed to actually help us poor ground pounders instead of sitting around in the clouds stroking his beard all day. Proto? Primo?"

"Prompto," Ignis supplies. The name is so bittersweet on his tongue his mouth aches from it, becomes clumsy enough to spill the rest of that ridiculous title. "Sky God Prompto, captain of the Great Zegnatus. A good choice, though it might take some time for him or his to reach you." And before he can stop himself he offers, "Would you like me to call him for you?"

"You _know_ him?" squeaks Jelica.

"'Course he knows him. Probably baked him pie," says Faustus. He stomps his feet to warm them, shakes his head and sends snow drifting from his hair.

"I have, actually," Ignis admits, and finds himself succumbing again to his own magic. 

The fangs of the past sink deep into the meat of his heart. He can still remember the pear and chocolate torte he'd baked especially for the first visit of Noctis' new school friend. Ignis had wanted Prompto to feel welcomed. Prompto had been embarrassingly effusive in his praise, and charming with his awkward stutters and blushes as he fumbled for suitable flattery. 

He's never really lost that, always ready with praise and quick to insist that Ignis' culinary offerings be immortalized on film and splashed across social media. He'd once quipped, 'Good thing people can only look but not taste, or we might have to deal with kidnapping attempts.' 

(' _Not_ funny,' Noctis had hissed, eyes narrowed to slivers of blue ice.)

Memories of Prompto's antics bring with them memories of Gladio, who eats everything Ignis sets before him with placid enjoyment. Never picks at his food, always wants seconds. Not always the case - years ago he'd mocked Ignis for playing kitchen-maid, badgering him about the risks of poisoning their Prince and the disgrace of using combat daggers as potato peelers. Ignis had finally shut him up with the help of a salt-baked chickatrice. Gladio had appreciated the bird, but he'd been ecstatic over the soup stock Ignis had made with the bones and used to make ramen.

('He'll still like Cup Noodles better,' Noctis had predicted, sadly accurate.)

Thinking back on it, cooking has been an enormous part of his life with his friends. From the occasional dessert to a lunch or dinner, to cooking for Noctis full time, to their fateful trip to Altissa where Ignis had finally begun catering for Gladio and Prompto as well. 

Before his blind eyes shimmers a mirage, a memory of nights where he'd lean against the camp stove and watch the three of them sitting by the fire, camp plates in their laps, the night dark and close around them. A tiny, perfect world where they all laughed and joked and played far too much King's Knight, where Gladio arm wrestled them for dish washing duty, and Prompto showed them the day's photos on his camera, and the golden glow of the firelight gilded the soft curve of Noctis' cheek, made his smile glimmer in the dark.

Recipes flicker through Ignis' mind, snapshots of his life, his joys and frustrations. The many spicy dishes he's indulged Prompto with, the noodle debates with Gladio, the birthday cakes and the breakfasts in bed, the soup for the sick and the cookies to celebrate exams passed. 

The eternal quest to recreate a barely-remember pastry, and by that miracle reconnect with the sparkling child-Noctis of Ignis' past.

What would the three of them think of his sad offerings now? Oatcakes and unleavened bread and sugar cookies so plain they haven't even been frosted. 

_Hardly up to my old standards_ , he thinks ruefully as he pulls his phone from the Armiger, switches it on and tells it, "Moggle: Call Prompto." _Gladio would be right to prefer Cup Noodles after all._

And suddenly, caught in the snare of his own magic and imaginings, he wonders if Gladio actually _has_ been eating nothing but Cup Noodles these past eight odd years, and on the heels of that comes the worry that with so many cares and so little time to see to himself Prompto has slipped back into bad habits as well, eating whatever junkfood is at hand, slowly rotting from within-

«Iggy?! Iggy, don't hang up!» squawks Prompto's voice. 

"Have you been eating properly?" Ignis blurts.

There's a long moment of silence from the phone, then, « . . . no. Nope. Absolutely not! Just been chowing down on whatever I can beat out of vending machines. Mmm-mmm, saturated fat!»

"But everything in there is past date by now," protests Ignis, rather inanely. Then, "And how are you even finding vending machines with anything left in them?"

«I, uh. . . haven't? I've . . . been starving? For years?»

Slowly, Ignis' good sense surfaces from the fog of magic-induced panic. "So I'm speaking to a corpse, then? Tell me truthfully, Prompto, what have you been eating these past years?"

«Imperial rations, mostly. We get fresh vegetables from the hydro farms Doctor Yeagre set up, but not much and not often, and not very good, either. I miss your cooking, Igster.» And then, so very quiet, so very gentle, «I miss _you._ »

"I . . . " His excuses choke him. 

By this point Faustus and Jelica are flanking him like twin monuments to hopeful expectation, and he seizes on them as his respite. "I've found some refugees in need of evacuation. They're mostly the elderly, or the disabled. There's three children and a father, as well."

«Oh.» So much disappointment in so small a sound. Prompto does his best to cover it, though, quickly forcing cheer into his voice. «Guess you need the blessing of the magnificent Sky God Prompto, huh?»

It's all the same words but none of the real joy, and guilt sees its chance at last and lays vicious siege to Ignis' conscience, forcing from him a hesitant, "And- and I thought perhaps. . ." 

«. . . yeah?» Breathless. As hopeful as the man and woman flanking Ignis, as the people clustered around a fire behind him, as a father awaiting the return of his children.

"I . . . thought they could pick me up as well. I. Would like to. Visit?"

The triumphant cries of "DADDY!" and "Beth! Pulli, Noddy!" drown out whatever Prompto might have said. But that's alright. Ignis already knows the answer.


	5. Chapter 5

»»»»»»» he saved my mom  
she was in an imp base w/ bunch of others starving  
he came in and gave them all bred   
told them how to get to sky god

»»»»»»» I'm a bit older than you lot. I actually met the man, though I was fairly young at the time, and I can barely remember him. Tall man, skinny, serious. No nonsense. He wandered into camp one day after we'd been hit bad by a daemon attack. He spent almost week helping rebuild, cooking for us, healing all the wounded with magic. Never got his name. He left real quiet, without a goodbye.

»»»»»»» He taught my pops to make magic bread

»»»»»»» My auntie always said that she would have given up if she hadn't met him. He promised her the sun would come back. He promised, and he made food come out thin air she said. Led her to a Haven to help her stay safe. Told her how to find the Sky God.

»»»»»»» Yeah that also happened to my Grandpa. Grandpa was in some Ruins looking for food or anything he could sell to get food and this blind guy comes out of nowhere and offers him whole meals if Grandpa will pass a test of courage so Grandpa follows him into the Ruins down deep and helps the Blind Guy find some rock and Blind Guy thanks Grandpa by giving him oatcakes and a ham and bread and a Potion!!! and also told Grandpa that Dawn Will Come so Grandpa knew not to give up hope

\- archive of the chatroom "Long Night Survivor Stories"

  
The warmth of the sun is fading from the walls of Ignis' office. It will be evening soon, and just as well. Fatigue lies heavy on him like a lead blanket. He's been working without break since lunch, and loath as he is to admit it, he's no longer young enough to endure such long hours. 

His joints crack when he rolls his shoulders, the tendons stiff, and the web of scars lacing his flesh ache in time with the roiling mass of Ramuh's magic building in the sky above. 

_There'll be thunderstorms tonight._

"Is there anything left?" he asks Eris, his assistant.

"There . . . there is one thing, sir." The hesitation in Eris' voice rings warning bells in Ignis' mind. He's been Ignis' assistant in managing the duties of the Royal Adviser for close on two decades now, steady and impartial in the face of whirling Citadel politics, and in all that time Ignis has heard the man unsure of himself less than a dozen times. "There's a petition I would like you to consider. It's for the upcoming anniversary festive."

The Festival of the Dawn, he means. A glittering celebration of the King of Light's triumph, made all the more special this year as it's the fiftieth anniversary of Noctis' return. There will be the usual vigil the night before and feast for when the rosy light of dawn sweetens the horizon, but this year there's the added festival games and fair rides and food booths, free admission to the city's museums and a host of concerts, public service awards and grants of money to charities.

Then, as the sun begins to set in a wash of scarlet and gold, the entire Court will parade down the main street to the central plaza, where there will be the ceremonial lighting of the lamps accompanied by a speech by Noctis as he reminds everyone that though night has fallen once again, the dawn will return, tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow . . . 

That's the plan, anyway. Ignis' plan. He's spent most of his free time this past year labouring over the extravaganza, coordinating with the various Council members, securing the needed budget, drawing up security protocols with the Glaive, vetting the featured artists and entertainers, and enduring the barrage of petitions for the inclusion of this rite or that ceremony. 

It's been both stressful and, grindingly exhausting. It's been a labour of love, however, an opportunity to celebrate the man at the centre of his life who has endured so much, given so much, lost so much, and Ignis regrets none of it.

Noctis has been both exasperated and indulgent of the planned pageantry. Prompto and Gladio have been amused and horrified in turn as Ignis has revealed to them their own roles in the upcoming celebration. And until now Eris has been content to be nothing more than a second pair of eyes and hands, letting Ignis field any 'suggestions' from various members of the Council and make all the decisions about what should be included in the event. What could possibly have pushed him to break pattern?

"Indeed? It must be extremely important for you to bring it up like this," he says, deciding to allow this personal request.

He has to wait a bit. Eris, usually so unflappable, is now as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Ignis can hear the rustle of the man's clothing as he fidgets, the twitchy little motions reflected in the fluctuation of his aura. Then Eris takes a gulping swallow and says, "It's a petition to erect a monument to the Blind Baker."

Ignis' guts freeze solid in an instant, the cold spreading through his body and stilling his limbs, stiffening his expression to a blank slab of ice.

Eris' words gush out in a torrent of excuses and pleas, "I know you don't like the topic, sir, since people make a big deal of it to you, what with you being blind as well, and I know you feel it's pointless superstitions but the man did exist. He _did_. He saved- he saved my mum when she was lost in the Cleigne fens."

 _Did I?_ Ignis tries to remember, but it's been fifty years since he wandered the dark wastes, haunting the ancient ruins in his search for a miracle, and there had been so many lost people.

"He saved so _many_ lost people," Eris continues. "Scared people. A lot of them have passed away now, but their children remember the stories, and many of us still have the recipes that he taught and- and we want other people to remember. To know that even in that awful time there was kindness."

"There's already-" Ignis begins.

"It's not the same," Eris interrupts Ignis' well-worn excuses. "Sky God Argentum, Great Shield Gladio, Wise Yeagre, Demonslayer Iris. They all did big things. Important things. Things everyone knows about. But they were only in the major enclaves, not out in the wastes. And- and no one _met_ them. They were always busy with their duties and surrounded by Glaives. The Blind Baker, he-"

The heavy drumming of Gladio's knock interrupts Eris in turn, makes Ignis start in his chair. Age is catching up to him if he's failing to notice the approach that familiar aura. 

"Enter," he calls, with added welcome for this timely interruption. 

As soon as the door swings open, Gladio rumbles, "Something up, Iggy? I don't usually get a chance to knock." His voice kept deepening with age, and at eighty three it's become a basso purr that lingers in Ignis' bones. 

"No, nothing. I'll be ready to come to dinner in a moment. Let me just tidy-" he begins.

But he's underestimated Eris' determination. "Sir!" Eris barks. "Lord Shield, sir! You wouldn't find it offencive to have a monument to the Blind Baker erected beside yours, would you?"

Ignis swears quietly to himself. Fifty years he's managed to keep this suppressed, insisting that the Long Night had enough real heroes to laud and enough overlooked heroes to raise up. There were too many scavengers as it was, rooting about in the refuse of that terrible time for scraps of glory, hoping to carve their names into history at the expense of their integrity. Praising an urban myth would only muddy things further, Ignis had said, and no one had been able to counter the argument because it was nothing less than the truth. 

The number of self-important, self-aggrandizing, self-proclaimed 'heroes of the Dark' Ignis has quashed over the years have only reinforced his arguments. The draconian policies he's enacted to stop 'unproven rumours and falsified testimony' regarding events during the Long Night have done the rest. The Citadel staff had dropped the subject of the fabled Baker.

The years had rolled on, burying the subject under cairn of silence, the space grown over with everyday concerns and complacency, the grave lost in the shadows of the towering deeds of the real heroes of that time. 

Until now.

"A monument to who?" asks Gladio, and even without eyes Ignis can see the poorly acted confusion on that too-handsome face, can hear the amusement under the ill-fitting cloak of innocence. "Wait. That's the folk hero, isn't it? The one who went around giving people oatcakes and helping them find shelter during the Long Night?"

"You know of him, sir?" asks Eris in breathless excitement.

"More like 'know him.'" Crisp footsteps on the stone floor as Gladio comes closer, the subtle shove against Ignis' desk as Gladio props his hip against it as he has done so many times before. "I met the guy. Met him a couple times, actually."

Ignis scowls and seriously contemplates jamming a knife into one of Gladio's kidneys. It won't stop the inevitable, but it would make Ignis feel a little better. At least until he had to help the swaggering side of beef back to the suite of rooms they share with Noctis and Prompto. Gladio gets woozy after a potion these days.

Eris gasps. "You _did?!_ Would- would you consent to writing a formal Glaive report, sir? Please. It would mean a great deal to many people. To these people, actually." There's the sound of fluttering paper, Eris presumably waving the petition at Gladio. "And. To me, as well."

"Don't see why not. Gimme that? Thanks." 

Ignis' little office, usually comfortably quiet in its disused side hall, has now become stiflingly silent as Gladio slowly reads through the petition papers. 

_Damn all prankster Amicitas to the Dark_. This is all for show, of course, Gladio obviously having already decided to help this ridiculous cause along, if only to irritate Ignis. Because he knows exactly who the Blind Baker is and what Ignis thinks about being idolized in such a ridiculous fashion, and he knows Ignis would prefer to have his deeds during the Long Night be forgotten entirely. He knows, and he disagrees.

 _But there is nothing to celebrate._ It was a selfish quest from the beginning, a defiance of the gods spurred on by Ignis' childish inability to accept the loss his first friend, first playmate, his first-

-his first love. 

Who could say how many lives Ignis might have saved if he's stayed with Prompto and helped organize the aerial relief efforts, or aided Gladio in the defence of the refugee camps. How much more efficient would Iris' forays against the daemon nests have been if Ignis had used his abilities to sense corruption and led her through the dark? 

How much faster would Doctor Yeagre have discovered the cure for those infected by the Starscrouge if Ignis had taken his findings to her as soon as possible?

Ignis is honest enough with himself to know that he could have been an enormous asset to any of those causes. But he wasn't. He had instead abandoned his friends and fled into the darkness, and whatever little good he accomplished in the wilds will forever be tainted by the knowledge of his own willingness to let the world rot if it could buy him the time to discover a loophole in Fate's decree.

He has no regrets.

But neither does he wish to be lauded for abandoning the world in favour of his own desires. Let the praise go to those who deserve it. To Gladio and Prompto, to Iris and Yaegre, to the Glaives and to the Hunters. And to Noctis. Ignis will be content to be remembered as the tireless bureaucrat who helped rebuild Insomnia, as the King of Light's shadowy adviser . . . and as Noctis' lover. There is nothing else he needs. It's already more than he likely deserves.

All this Ignis has told Gladio many times before, and until now Gladio had seemed content to let things be . . . .

"Lotta names here. Shouldn't this be enough to make a case? How come you need me to make a report?"

Eris explains, "It's Citadel policy that to receive honours for acts during the Long Night, you need to have had at least three reports filed with the Glaive, the Hunters, or the acting authorities for a major shelter."

". . . is it. I didn't know we had something like that," says Gladio, his powerful voice grinding the words into Ignis' skin.

"It was needed," Ignis snaps, taking the bait despite himself.

"It was," Eris agrees. "We've had a lot of people try to scam their way to fame, enough that for a couple of years it seemed like we had a new would-be hero every week begging the Crown to compensate them for their sacrifices during the Long Night. It was revolting. And it was enough of a problem that Lord Scientia laid down these policies. But- but it also means that the Baker might never be recognized for his efforts. He always showed up in the wastes, to small groups of people. The handful of times he showed up at a Hunter's camp it was when people were mostly missing, or trapped, or unconscious."

"And he always left before anyone got to thank him, right? And never left his name?"

"You really _have_ met him!" says Eris, far too delighted by this tidbit.

"Yup. He helped me out in the last couple years of the Long Night. Helped out Prompto, too, and I think Noct's met him at least once. Look, how about I take this with me and talk it over with His Majesty over dinner?"

" _Gladio,_ " Ignis growls. He tightens his fingers on the edge of the desk, wishing it was Gladio himself so that Ignis could throttle the silent, gloating _smugness_ right out of the man. 

"Noct can deal with a little extra work with his appetizer, Iggy, especially when it's something as important to his people as this. You know he'll agree."

"I know that you're using your position to force this issue," he retorts, then sighs and slumps in his chair. "But I also know that it's futile to argue at this point. My aide has suborned you to this cause-" 

"Sir! Sir, it's not-"

"-and now that the idea has managed to slip through your ears and into your thick skull it'll take more effort than it's worth to dislodge it," Ignis finishes acidly. 

"Ouch. Almost hurt my feelings there, Iggy," Gladio says mildly.

"You haven't any," Ignis snaps. 

~

The ancient Citadel weathered the climactic battle with Ardyn. Its halls, first desecrated by his undead creatures, then slicked with the pus of the alien Scourge as it bled across black stone, were scoured clean by the blaze called forth by the King of Light. Noctis' power, focused through the ancient Solheim lens Ignis had unearthed in the ruins hidden in the smouldering heart of Ravatogh, had bounced off the marble floors, hummed in the walls, spilt out of every window in a melt of glass, until the entire Citadel had (so Prompto had said) glowed 'red-orange-white-white- _white_ ' with it, trapping the Scourge-that-was-Ardyn within its walls and baking it like an infinitely vast and ill-tempered squid.

That power still hums in the walls, clean and sweet to Ignis' senses, tracing out the walls and doors and stairs to him, a world where he can _almost_ forget his hunger for blue sky, and glittering stars, and the curve of a sleep-smudged smile.

Noctis' power has left its mark on the Citadel in other ways. Apparently it's stayed as white as a fresh milk, a change the populace has hurried to embrace. Gladio says Insomnia looks more like a Tenebrae palace than their solemn Lucian home of old.

The four of them live here now, in the highest floors of the Citadel. Not in Regis' quarters. Those rooms are thick with memories even the Light of the King cannot sweep away, and anyways, there isn't enough space for them all. No, they live in what was once the Dowager Wing, where retired monarchs would spend their golden years. There are bedrooms, a sitting room, a sunroom, two bathrooms. A kitchen. All newly renovated after Noctis' magic burnt away everything but the walls.

'Glad they put in these low counters. I must be the only King who shrunk as he got older,' Noctis had joked.

'Offer's still open to rig your chair with hydraulic lifts,' Prompto had said. 'Or we could grab a set of legs off an MA Veles. The Glaive have a few in good repair.'

They get by with a minimum of interference from the Citadel staff, stubborn in their independence. The cleaning staff is allowed in only once a week, with the laundry done at the same time, and food brought every other day. It's only raw ingredients, however. Ignis is the one who cooks for their every meal, soaking the food in his power, helping ease the strain of worn joints and old scars. 

His family are the only people he cooks for. Noctis, Gladio and Prompto. Iris and Aranea when they're in the city and care to visit. Sonia Yeagre and Cor used to drop in as well, when they were alive. 

For tonight's dinner there's only the four of them . . . and one uninvited guest, speaking with the voices of, if Gladio is to be believed, hundreds. 

"Almost two thousand," Gladio is saying, the fluttering of pages a soft backdrop to his words.

Ignis snorts and sets the meatpie down on the table rather harder than is proper. At least all the antiques burnt in the final battle so he can no longer ruin them with his fits of pique. "Paltry numbers. Hardly worth all this fuss and bother, especially when you compare them to the numbers of people you yourself rescued in those dark times. Why they persist in making this an issue I don't understand."

"Uh, because you literally saved them from starving to death with your awesome cooking?" Prompto ventures. "I know if I was dying of hunger and someone came out of nowhere to feed me one of your curries I would _totally_ want a statue built for them. And, uh, you should know. It's not just these guys in the petition talking about this."

"What do you mean?" demands Ignis, his heart sinking.

"Yeah, Prompto, what do you mean?" asks Noctis. 

There's far too much hidden laughter in that beloved voice for Ignis' comfort, and he tries desperately to change topics before this can develop into further absurdity. "Never mind. What about that new airship model your people were developing? How's progress coming?"

"Great, thanks! And I _mean_ ," Prompto continues with dogged persistence, "that I've heard other people talking about this. Like, there's a couple engineers who give oatcakes to people they know will be travelling, and that one girl who left out sugar cookies for her lost dog —which worked by the way— and when there was a flu going through the staff a few years ago everyone was passing flatbread to each other to help with the -"

"Yes, thank you, that's enough," says Ignis, exasperated. Fifty years and the man still hasn't learnt to take a hint. 

Nor has Gladio, who adds, "It's not just here in the city. The Hunters have all added oatcakes to their field rations, for example, and they've been reporting finding the occasional shrine out in the woods with tins of flatbread left as offerings."

Noctis' wheelchair creaks as he leans to the side to lay a hand on Ignis' wrist. "Sounds like you had a bigger impact than you thought, Specs." 

"It can't have made that much of an impact. None of them remember what I looked like," he grumbles, surprising himself with his own bitterness. _Damn. Am I truly so greedy in the end as to want praise for my self-indulgences?_ He takes his seat besides Noctis. Sighs. 

More laughter, this time open and from all of them. He's getting extremely tired of their mirth at his expense. "Yes? What's so amusing now?"

It's Prompto who gets the words out between his snickering. "Iggy, dude. They don't remember your face because the entire world was _pitch black!_ "

The words hit him with the impact of one of Noct's Thundagas. He'd known, of course, that the world was cloaked in darkness. Though blind, he could still discern differences in light, and he'd thought that'd been enough to help keep him aware of the difficulties a sighted person might encounter in those times of endless night.

Thinking back on it now, though . . . what must he have looked like to all those lost people? A tall man emerging from the darkness, no lamp to herald his presence, his face mostly hidden by dark glasses, sometimes also a scarf. The handful of people he'd shown his ruined eyes to would have seen, what? A flash of pale irises in the mottled web of scars. Likely they'd remember the damage and not the rest of the details.

And of course, fear and exhaustion would have kept them distracted. Hardscrabble years of fighting for survival would have dulled the memories of adults, those who were children at the time would be looking back through the fog of youth, and the elderly would have passed away. Thinking back on it, it's remarkable that anyone remembered him at all.

" . . . ah," is all he can manage.

Noctis pounces on his vulnerability. "Look, Specs. I get that you don't want people to make a big deal out of this for- for reasons."

 _Selfish, selfish, selfish,_ fills in Ignis' brain.

"But they're dumb reasons," Noctis insists, "Because what you did was a big deal to a lot of people. People who'd never have been saved if you hadn't been out wandering around in the dark. It doesn't matter why you were, or what might have been better for you to do. What matters is what you _did_."

"I was eating oatcakes before you even came back to the Zegnatus. Whoever you taught the recipe to started spreading it to every shelter on the map," says Prompto. 

"A couple of the Glaive patrols used your sugar cookies to call survivors out of a ruined town," Gladio says.

"And everyone outside the Citadel still swaps stories in chatrooms and there's recipe posts on messageboards and Gladio says they're building shrines to you in the forest. Specs . . . " Noctis gropes for Ignis' hand even as he gropes for words. He laces their fingers together, says, "No one has to know it was you. But hiding what you did is wrong, if only because it's not fair to all the people who remember."

Their united front is overwhelming, their arguments all too well coordinated, and Ignis really _is_ getting old if he's missed such obvious signs of an ambush. "You arranged for all of this," he accuses.

But Noctis refuses to be shamed into silence. "You'll model for the statue. No one has to know you really were the Blind Baker; if anyone asks we can say it's 'cuz you're my lover and blind and I thought it was a good way to sneak you into the display. But you gotta do this, Specs. You gotta. For all those people you saved. And- and for us. For me." 

His hand tightens on Ignis'. "I don't want my statue to keep standing there without yours."

~

Ignis models for the statue. He's grudgingly impressed that the artist had been chosen, hired, and payed behind his back. 

He's less impressed by the finalized work's description, helpfully supplied by Gladio: "It's pretty good. A modest twelve feet of bronze."

"Sweet Shiva," Ignis groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. "On par with your own? Foolishness. At least they didn't make it taller than Noct's."

"No worries there. Oh, the hood and the blindfold do a pretty good job of hiding it's you, by the way. There's just one issue. You remember that rolling pin they had you hold?"

"All too well." A ridiculous trapping for someone supposedly baking while out in the wild, but as he couldn't say anything without giving the game away he'd had to endure the artist's assumptions. Ignis had held that damn thing for what felt like hours, his arm slowly losing sensation as the rolling pin seemed to gradually transform from wood to stone to lead, with only the fantasy of using it for righteous revenge against all artists and kings to keep Ignis docile.

"It's the angle you held it at. With you wearing a robe and holding that thing in your hand, you look like a big, skinny tonberry. 'Course, the lamp they stuck in your other hand doesn't help," Gladio adds.

"A _lamp?!_ I didn't even have a flashlight, much less a lamp!"

"But you did tell people the sun would come back. Symbolism, Iggy."

Grim resolution tightens the corners of Ignis' mouth. "Right. I'll be borrowing Prompto's rocket launcher, then."

"You'll be arrested for vandalism."

"A sacrifice I am prepared to make in the name of the greater good. And as for _you_ , Gladiolus, you will stop grinning right this moment if you don't wish to join the statue in an early grave. Don't pretend you aren't," says Ignis, already heartily sick of this entire fiasco and getting more irritable by the moment as he contemplates the coming months of jibes and snickers. "I could hear it in your voice."

Alas, Noctis halts Ignis' plans to recycle the atrocity into something with more artistic merit, like sewage pipes. The wretched statue is done in more than enough time for the festival when it's unveiled to the public in an ostentation ceremony beneath the noon-day sun and receives far too much applause. Ignis refuses to make any comment to the press, and his friends have mercy and keep equally silent.

The public, however, is not so gracious as to keep its opinions to itself.

The expected wave of complaints about nepotism is a bare ripple compared to the surge of speculation that swamps the city. The fifty years Ignis has spent carefully repainting himself as viciously competent and ruthlessly fair bureaucrat are being scrubbed away in only a few months. 

Where as he used to shelter behind the reputation of so many great heroes, now he is revealed as the odd man out. Why, ask the public, do the Great Shield Gladio, the Demonslayer Iris, the Sky God Argentum keep company with a 'mere bureaucrat'? Why has the King of Light taken him into his bed? Just who _is_ Ignis Scientia, really?

And where was he during the Long Night?

Questions follow questions, but none dare ask Ignis directly. Instead rumours swirl in his wake, slosh back and forth between Citadel departments, trickle through the halls and out into the city. By the end of the year the Blind Baker has become a monstrous iceberg looming on Ignis' horizon.

Someone leaks his old Crownsguard records.

His combat abilities, his aptitude for magic, his knowledge of first aid. Comments on his ability to access the Armiger. Notes on his skills at foraging for food. The splash it makes on message boards is almost enough to sink all his efforts at anonymity. It's only the deep chill of his disdain that keeps him afloat . . .

Or so he thinks. He's proven wrong, however, by the flotsam that begins to collect on his office desk. 

Cards. Flowers. Tins of coffee. Bags of flour and sugar. A package of oats. A plate of cookies. 

It's not much and it's not often and he can't bring himself to throw any of it away. He never says anything about it, and neither do Noctis, Gladio, or Prompto. Eris keeps his mouth shut as well.

Except once, early on, when he presses an oatcake into Ignis' hand and says, "Thank you."

~

The years pass . . . 

. . . and so does Ignis, breathing his last in the bed he shares with Noctis, tumbling out of his mortal shell and into the vast world of ether, where the spark of himself is caught by icy hands and dragged before the solemn infinities of the Astrals. 

YOU DEFIED US

"Yes," he answers in the direction of that voice, blind even now, because the price payed to the Crystal is a price payed forever, a sacrifice gouged from his very soul. And the gods, too, demand their sacrifice it seems:

YOU MUST PAY THE PRICE

"Of course. Anything you wish," he says. He has no regrets.

YOU WILL SERVE US. YOU WILL SERVE THEM. AND IN TIME, YOU WILL RETURN TO THE SIDE OF THE KING OF LIGHT

Separated from Noctis yet again. Grief braids through him, heavy as leaden chains. "As you say."

THEN GO.

And he finds himself with bones and blood and body once again. His head tilts back and he draws in a deep breath, filling his nose with the scent of wet greenery and loam. The hush of wind in the vast canopy above whispers in his ears. He is standing in a forest, a new forest in a new land, and he is young and strong as he hasn't been for decades, and in his hands is cloth bundle, the shape of which he recognizes immediately, the kitchen magic inside warm and comforting. Oatcakes. His oatcakes, laced with strength for the weary, with endurance for the long road home. 

The man ahead is going to need that magic blessing. Ignis _knows_ this, just as he knows that the man has been wandering these woods for weeks, his shoulder dislocated in a recent fall, his supplies lost in that same tumble. All this man has left is hope and . . . a prayer. A whispered plea that,

"They- they say the Blind Baker helps idiots like me. Well. If that's so. If you're really out there. I'd appreciate whatever help you're willing to give."

 _Serve them, is it?_ Ignis' lips twist in a reluctant smile. It seems his penance is to make truth of fables. He can feel it now, a new purpose, a new duty settling over his shoulders. He will guide the lost home and feed the starving for however long the gods deem fit. He will serve and endure for eternities if necessary. He has done so before. He can do so again. 

Because the gods have promised. Ignis will return to Noctis' side. 

It's inevitable as the dawn.

\- END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This could have been longer. It needs more chapters, I feel, to flesh out the growing myth. But I had about two months to write the whole thing, so I did my best. Perhaps someday I'll go back and add in the missing bits. I'd like that.


End file.
